


As the World Falls Down

by falafelfiction



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Eleven/Mike Wheeler-Centric, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-11
Updated: 2018-02-13
Packaged: 2019-03-03 16:11:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 38,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13344771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/falafelfiction/pseuds/falafelfiction
Summary: Two days. It’d taken just two days for Mike to screw up his life and lose El again. And then there was the end of the world to consider...the end that’d surely be coming for all of them if he couldn’t find some way to reach her.Dr Brenner returns, throwing El and Mike’s lives into turmoil. COMPLETED.





	1. Don't Tell Them Anything

**Author's Note:**

> Wow, it's a little daunting to be starting a 12-part Stranger Things series. My conceptual notes alone for this story are already over 6,000 words long. But for a while now I've been wanting to write something more than a missing scenes fic for Stranger Things. I've been wanting to do a long, plotty, angsty and terrifying post-S2 story, specifically one revolving around Mike and El. Be warned, this fic is going to be a very rough ride for fans of this ship. If your heart can take it, then strap yourselves in.
> 
> And just to be clear...this prologue chapter is a flash forward. My next chapter is set two days earlier and will begin filling in all the gaps. I hope that this set up is compelling for you and not too confusing. Please let me know in the comments!

**Friday 24th May, 1985**

 

“Michael Wheeler...the doctor will see you now.”

Mike raised his head from the mattress in the soft cell where he’d spent most of the afternoon. The state troopers had brought him to Pennhurst psychiatric hospital that morning and since then he’d been awaiting his evaluation. It had to be close to evening now. The large male orderly at his door ushered Mike to his feet and then kept a cautionary grip on his arm as he led him down the long featureless hallway. Mike’s jeans felt loose around his waist. They’d taken his belt when he'd arrived here and his shoelaces too. If Mike tried to run, his sneakers would probably fall off and he’d have to escape barefoot. Just like El when she’d first escaped from Hawkins lab.

 _El,_ he thought. He really did need to break out of here.

Whatever it took, he had to get away. He had to find her.

But this was the scary thing about nuthouses. If they thought that you were crazy, then they could keep you locked up for as long as they wanted. And right now, everyone in Hawkins had to be thinking Mike Wheeler was certifiably insane. That or he was one dangerous criminal. If Mike wasn’t imprisoned here, then he’d be on his way to juvie. He still might be.

Mike and the orderly rounded another corner, then stepped into a doctor’s office.

“Good afternoon, Michael,” said the doctor, rising up from behind his desk. “I’m Doctor Cohen.”

Mike blinked at the doctor in confusion. “ _You_?” he said.

He recognized this man. This wasn’t any Dr Cohen. This was Dr _Owens_ from Hawkins lab.

“No, young man…I don’t believe we’ve had the pleasure,” Owens said hastily, motioning Mike towards a chair.

“Please, take a seat," the imposter doctor went on. "And might I request that you refrain for a moment from saying anything else...” He placed a large black tape recorder on his desk. “Everything that we say in this room needs to be recorded. To be assessed by medical professionals, that is. Nothing that’ll be used against you in court. But still…I would be careful what you say…”

Mike nodded, beginning to understand. He tightened his lips.

The one time Mike had been let out of his soft cell earlier that day was around lunchtime. He’d been taken to some white-walled communal area with little nailed down tables. There he’d been permitted to sit and eat a sandwich while his family had been allowed in to see him. Well...his mom and Nancy at least. Mike hadn’t asked where Dad was and he’d assumed that Holly was with a sitter. It...it wasn’t much of a visit. His mom had been crying the whole time, barely able to get any words out besides _“Why Michael?”_ and _"What did we do wrong?!"_. Nancy hadn’t said a word, but she’d reached out to grasp Mike’s hand under the table. At first, Mike had taken this as a consoling gesture. But then suddenly he’d felt his big sister pressing a note into his palm. He’d pulled his hand back, glancing down at its words…

 _Help is coming_ , Nancy’s note had said. _Don’t tell them anything._

Mike had caught his sister's eye and nodded. He'd tried to pass the little slip of paper back to her, but at that exact moment, the buzzer had sounded, signalling the end of visiting time. So Mike had crumpled Nancy’s note in his fist and then brought his hand up to his mouth, faking a cough. He’d slipped the paper inside his cheek and then started swallowing it as he was walked back towards the cells. He'd made sure the note was eaten before the orderlies could stop him and shine a torch down his throat again.

“So...shall we begin?” said Dr Owens, his finger poised to record.

Mike lowered himself into the chair as the orderly stepped outside the room. He still couldn’t make sense of why Owens was here. As far as Mike knew, Dr Owens had been laying low since the dismantling of Hawkins lab around seven months ago. Mike hadn’t even seen the man since the night he’d escaped from the facility when it’d been swarming with demodogs. But he knew that Hopper had remained in touch with him. He knew that Owens had been helping to provide El with the necessary documentation for her new identity as Jane Hopper. Mike supposed that if Owens could give El a false identity as Hopper’s illegitimate daughter, then he could also fake an identity for himself as a mental health professional. It’s not like they’d ever believed Owens was a real doctor at Hawkins lab either.

“Sure,” said Mike, offering a shrug. “Let’s get this over with.”

Owens nodded and hit the big red button.

“Okay. Let me start by asking what you remember of the incident this morning?”

“The…incident?” Mike said hesitantly.

Dr Owens lifted a sheet of paper and read off it. “Yes, according to police and witnesses at the scene...at approximately 9am you chased an unarmed man across the yard of Hawkins Middle School. I’m told that you were carrying a gun and that you shot this man in the leg. Do you remember doing that, Michael?”

Mike held Dr Owens gaze. Then slowly he nodded.

“For the benefit of the tape, please,” Owens prompted.

Suddenly, with a start, he remembered Nancy’s note. _Don’t tell them anything…_

So Mike just took a breath and kept his mouth shut.

“What? You shy all of a sudden, kid? You know, the police spoke to a couple of your friends who were present at the scene too. They had this idea that the shooting must have been in self-defense. They supposed that the man who you injured must have done something to you…that maybe this man was the reason that you’ve been missing for the last two days...” Dr Owens lowered his eyes to Mike’s hands. “Don’t think that we haven’t noticed those bruises, son,” he said, nodding to the purple rings around each of Mike’s wrists. “The only trouble is...it’s hard to tell if they were caused by somebody else or through self-harm. We get a lot of wrist-bangers here in Pennhurst.”

Mike continued to say nothing. But it was a good thing he’d been given meds to keep him calm.

Dr Owens sighed. “Trouble is...all eye-witnesses state that you were running _towards_ this man, not away from him. So it’s hard for the police to see you as the victim here, kid. Especially given your previous record...” At this point, Dr Owens opened up another file on his desk. “Were you aware you have a police record? It dates back to November 1983, when you were just twelve years old. It says right here you were questioned by federal agents after having harbored a suspected Russian spy in your family’s basement. A young girl about your age...” Owens put the file down and narrowed his eyes at Mike. “So given this little backstory, the state police are forming their own theories on the incident at the school this morning. They’re thinking that maybe you’re back in contact with this Russian girl. They're thinking that she’s brainwashed you with commie propaganda and trained you up as an assassin. That she’s given you a hit list. That she’s getting you to target former employees of the Hawkins laboratory. The ones who she failed to kill herself during the massacre at your Middle school. There any truth to that, Mike?”

He bit down hard on his lip. _Don’t tell them anything. Don’t say a thing about her…_

“Son, I’ll be honest,” said Owens. “There’s a few other psychological exams I’ve got to go through with you...” He lifted a sheet of ink blots and waved it vaguely. “But if you’re refusing to answer any of my questions, then it’s hard not to view that as obstruction.” He paused a moment then added. “You realize that if this evaluation deems you were in your right mind at the time of the attack, then you’ll be moved from this hospital to the nearest detention facility. Sheriff Hopper is waiting outside to escort you at this very moment.”

Mike’s eyes widened at this. Dr Owens held his stare and winked.

 _Help is coming..._ Nancy’s note had said. Mike realized this must be it. This was his chance to escape.

“Sooooo if you don’t want that to happen…then you'd better start talking.”

Mike _did_ want that to happen. So he sat back. He crossed his arms and said nothing.

Owens smiled. “Suit yourself. Let the police form their own assumptions on what you’ve been up to these last two days.”

Mike swallowed. Had…had it really only been two days? It was crazy, but it was true. It’d taken just two days for Mike to screw up his life and lose El again. Then there was the end of the world to consider...the end that’d be coming soon if he couldn’t find a way to reach her.

Yeah. He really needed to get out of this nuthouse right now.


	2. Code Red Situation

**Two Days Earlier**

 

Hopper threw something hard against El’s bedroom door.

“What are you kids doing in there?” he called. “You’re too quiet.”

“Reading!” El yelled back before leaning across the bed and snatching a kiss, a quick clumsy kiss that made Mike’s eyes go wide, just like the first time he’d ever kissed her. The kiss was followed by badly muffled giggling.

“Yeah whatever...” Hop grumbled from the living room. “You’d better find a good part of your book to finish on. You’ve got five minutes left. Then I gotta drive Mike home.”

Their giddy smiles faded fast. El watched as Mike flopped back on her bed, throwing his arm up over his forehead. He gritted his teeth and let out a hiss of frustration.

“You never like going home,” El whispered, nestling her head close to his ear.

“I don’t like leaving you,” said Mike. “And I hate home.”

El winced. She couldn’t imagine hating a home as nice as Mike’s house. She couldn’t understand him preferring their cold little cabin in the woods and wishing he could visit here more often than Hopper would let them risk. But she guessed it was the people who lived in your home that made it a nice place, not pretty wallpaper and central heating.

“Is it still bad?” she asked. “With your parents?”

He shrugged. “With my dad it’s like...he’s not even there. He never talks to me unless mom's yelling and she wants him to back her up.”

“Why does your mom yell at you?” asked El.

“She just gets frustrated with me,” said Mike. “Because I’m not doing as good at school as I used to. Because my grades and behavior keep slipping. Mostly I think she’s mad because she knows I’m still keeping secrets from her. She knows I’m lying.”

She nodded. “And friends don’t lie.”

“Right.” He sighed. “Honestly, I’m mad at her too these days.”

“Because she brings that boy into your house?”

Mike nodded with another seething hiss. The boy was Billy Hargrove, Max’s evil step brother. Mike said that he’d been making regular visits to their home during the last few months. That he was suddenly always _there_.

“It started off as my mom paying him to do the odd repair around the house,” Mike fumed, shaking his head. “Jobs that my dad can’t do, because of his back trouble. But...but now he’s _always_ coming over, sleazing around the house, asking if there’s anything else that he can do. Just this week, my mom’s been talking about completely redecorating and having that asshole do all the wallpapering and paintwork. Last Saturday I found them sitting together in the living room, looking at different colored samples for new curtains. You should see the way she acts around him. The way she does her hair and her make up when she knows he’s coming over.”

El frowned. “She makes herself pretty?”

“Yeah,” said Mike, wrinkling his nose. “It’s gross.”

She nodded. She’d never met this Billy person. She didn’t even know what he looked like, but she knew all her friends hated him. Mike had told her that Billy had hurt Steve and tried to hurt Lucas and that was enough reason for El to hate him too. But she especially didn’t like that this Billy boy was making Mike feel so upset with his mom. Nothing feels quite so bad as fighting with family.

“Do you think…I’ll ever meet your parents?”

This was a question she asked sometimes, to Mike and to Hopper. She could never get a straight answer out of either of them. She suspected they thought it was too much of a risk. Mike said that the special agents who'd bugged their house had left his parents with her photograph. That their family had been warned to contact the authorities immediately if they ever saw her again.

“I don’t know,” said Mike, not sounding at all hopeful. “Honestly, I don’t know why you’d want to meet them. They’re really lame.”

El swallowed and she didn’t say how meeting a boy’s parents was an important thing that girlfriends did in all the romantic films and soap operas she’d watched. How as his girlfriend she was supposed to come over for family dinners and barbecues in the summertime. How if they ever had a wedding day, then they’d want Mike’s parents to be invited. But she knew that her and Mike would always struggle to have nice normal things like she saw on TV. It wasn’t like she could introduce Mike to her mama either...

El sighed. She didn’t want her last few minutes with Mike to be like this. She never knew how long it would be before Hopper decided it was safe for her to see him again. So she leaned in for another kiss. A slower softer kiss this time.

Before their lips could touch, there was a sharp knock at her door.

El and Mike leapt apart on her bed, swinging their legs over opposite sides of the mattress. Mike moved into the chair, while El grabbed her latest book, _The Hobbit_ , from the bedside table and held it open, like they’d been reading it together this whole time.

Hopper cracked open the door. “Time to go, Wheeler. Get your shoes on.” He glanced over at El and he rolled his eyes. “You realize you’re holding that book upside-down, kid?”

El blushed and put the book down on her pillow. She followed Mike to the door where they hugged, squeezed and said their goodnights. Then Mike and Hopper headed out to the car while El rushed over to the window. It was against the rules to open the curtains but she always peeped through when Hop was driving away. Mike would always look over his shoulder and out the car window just in time to see her watching him go.

The nights when Mike visited, which still weren’t too often, El always went straight to bed afterwards and Hopper knew not to disturb her when he got home. El liked to turn out the lights and shut her eyes while Mike’s face was still fresh in her mind. When she fell asleep she’d see Mike again in her dreams. And in her dreams, they wouldn’t be cooped up in his cabin. They’d be out walking together in the sunshine. They’d be holding hands in the school halls. They were always a nice normal couple in her dreams.

The next morning Hopper woke her up before she was ready. El dragged herself out of bed, pouting that there was only a bowl of muesli with that thin watery milk laid out for breakfast. They weren’t allowed to have any Eggos or French toast until Hopper was finished with his diet. He still had the last five pounds to go. As they sat and ate their boring healthy cereal, Hopper set her five math problems, a history quiz and three chapters of her book to read, giving her days schooling a little structure. He reminded El than she needed to finish her homework and chores before she was allowed to watch any TV. They shook hands on it and then Hopper headed off to the station. But as soon as El heard the car pull away she headed back to her room, climbing into bed for an extra hour of sleep.

She was woken again by a fuzzy voice out of her Supercom.

 _“El?”_ said the voice. _“It’s Lucas. Do you copy? Over.”_

She sat up, rubbing her eyes. She blinked at the walkie talkie on her bedside table. It had been her main Christmas present from Hopper last year. Her adoptive father had been sure to get her one with the strongest signal so that all her friends could reach her whenever they needed to.

“Lucas?” said El, snatching up the radio. “What are...?”

He didn't let her finish. _“Is Mike with you? Over.”_

She frowned. “He...he came last night. Hop took him home.”

 _“Really? What the hell...”_ Lucas was quiet a moment then he went on. _“It...it’s just something that Erica told me over breakfast. She said something about Mike radioing my house last night with a Code Red…”_

“Erica?” El interrupted. “Who…?”

_“My little sister! She keeps stealing my Supercom and then not passing important messages onto me. Even though I keep telling her that Code Red situations are serious! She thinks it's all a big joke!”_

El tensed, swallowing. “This is…bad?”

 _“It…it could be,”_ said Lucas, his nerves showing in his voice. _“I’m at Mike’s front door right now. I’ve been knocking for ten minutes but nobody is answering. I guess that could mean the Wheelers all left early today, but…but they never leave this early!"_

"So, so...what does that mean?"

_"It means I’m worried something’s happened. Over.”_

“To…to Mike?” El faltered, her breath growing short, her heart thundering.

_“I don’t know yet. I’m biking to school now. I got to find the rest of the party. If Mike’s not there, then we’ll be skipping. Stay calm till then, El. Don’t leave the cabin.”_

She was already trembling, tears filling her eyes. “H-hopper…”

_“Yeah, I’ll call the Chief too. He’ll know what to do. Over and out.”_

Lucas’s voice fizzled and then it was gone. El was left gasping in the silence. Lucas had told her to stay calm but already blind panic was dizzying her. Just the thought of something bad happening to Mike had her spinning out of control. She was still wearing only the big T-shirt that she slept in, but El rushed for the door of the cabin and clutched at its bolts, feeling desperate enough to pull them all back. But she didn’t open the door. She knew it wasn’t safe. And besides…there was another way she could search for Mike.

El turned the dial on the TV set until she found a channel of static fuzz. Then she turned up the volume so its white noise filled the living room. She hurried into her bedroom and took the photo of her and Mike out of its picture frame. The photo that Jonathan had taken of them together at the Snow Ball, six months ago. El held the photo against her rapidly pounding heart and then she sat down cross-legged in front of the TV. She hadn’t used her powers in months. She had promised Hopper that she wouldn’t do it anymore. She was meant to be practicing for her new life as Jane, the nice normal girl who didn’t have a supernatural radar system in her mind.

But this was a Code Red situation. This was a party member in trouble. This was _Mike_ in trouble.

El tied the blindfold over her eyes. She breathed in the darkness and she searched.

She searched and she strained, still gasping for air. For a terrible moment, the dark was all that there was. She called out Mike’s name only to hear it echoing back at her, ringing in her ears. Then somewhere far away, she saw a red glow smouldering in the shadows. A red light spilling forth like blood. And in that dull light...she slowly began to make out a shape. A twisted shape a little farther off on the ground. Slowly El walked towards this shape. And as she drew near, she heard a low moan rising up...

Her jaw fell open as she realized just what she was seeing.

 _Mike._ It was Mike. He lay moaning in a huddled heap on the ground. Limply he was struggling against the slimy tentacles that were coiled all the way up his legs, binding his limbs tightly together. There were more of these living vines that were looped around his chest, crushing his arms to his sides, reaching towards his neck and threatening to choke him. Mike’s hair was plastered to his brow with sweat. His eyes were wide open and watering. His breath came in sharp bursts through his nostrils. But he couldn’t speak. He couldn’t make any sound besides his moaning...because one of those thick dark tentacles had reached right into his mouth….

El rushed forwards, falling to her knees beside him. She grasped for the vines, impulsively clawing them off Mike’s body with her bare hands. But the moment she touched him, the Mike from her vision turned to grey smoke, turned into a cloud of steam that quickly surrounded her and then spun her out of her trance.

Then El was back in the cabin, ripping off her blindfold and rasping for breath.

She…she couldn’t believe what she’d seen. Mike in the shadow world. Mike in that place. And...and that place was killing him. Like it'd killed Barbara, like it'd tried to kill Will. Mike had been breathing and awake when she’d seen him, but...but for how long? She needed to get to him fast. She needed to save him. She…she needed a _gate_.

 _Yes_ , that’s what she had to do. Open a new gate. _Now_ …

El staggered to her feet, raising her hand to the nearest wall, ready to rip an inter-dimensional portal in the side of her own house if she had to. She held her shuddering arm up for less than a second, then her knees buckled under her and she fell sprawling on the floorboards again. Her skin was bathed in cold sweat and fresh blood was dripping from her nose, trickling over her lips. She hadn’t used her powers in such a long time. Just searching for Mike had left her feeling so drained, too weak to even stand…

She curled herself into a ball. Her whole body clenched like a fist that desperately wanted to fight. To punch a hole through into that dark place and pull Mike out of it. She searched for that strength inside her. For the _monster_ inside her that had ripped this world apart the last time...

El screamed. She turned on her side, threw back her head and screamed up at the ceiling. Her scream shook the wooden walls of the cabin. Glass burst from the windows again and its sharp fragments rained down over her, leaving tiny slices all over her skin. She closed her eyes and heard the door creaking and then collapsing. She realized she must have blown off its locks and hinges. She rolled over and stared through the open doorway into the sun-dappled woods. Her eyes darted round and she saw that half the furniture had fallen in ruins around her. She’d succeeded in wrecking the cabin, cracking her home like an egg...but she hadn't opened a gate.

Mike was still trapped in there. Mike was still… _oh please please no_.

She screwed up her face and sobbed. Somewhere in the distance she was aware of a car pulling up, parking close to the house. A moment later there were strong arms scooping her up off the floorboards. There were large familiar hands smoothing the damp hair from her brow.

“Hey, hey, _easy_ …” said Hopper’s voice in her ear. “I got you, kid.”

“Mike…” she whimpered, blood and tears filling her mouth. “Bad…bad...”

“ _Shush_! I know. I heard. We’re going to find him, you hear me?”

Her eyelids fluttered open. She looked into Hopper’s fierce stare. It steadied her.

“You...you promise?” she asked, clinging to his hand.

He nodded, holding her tight. “Promise.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I wanted to get this next chapter uploaded fast...just in case my prologue on its own was really confusing to readers. The timeline of this series is a little more linear from here on out. However, it will still go back and forth a bit. For example, in the next part I'm going back to Mike POV and it'll start from the moment Hopper drops him off back at his house. So you can find out what happened there. For the rest, I will be swapping between Mike and El's perspectives, with their timelines and experiences overlapping. I hope this keeps things interesting and keeps readers guessing!


	3. Turned Upside-Down

Mike and Hopper had rounded off their car ride back to Maple Street with an argument. Their habitual argument over when Mike was going to see El next. On this particular ride home Mike had made a _‘stupid’_ suggestion that maybe he could sneak El into his basement that coming weekend. The Chief wouldn’t even give him a minute to explain his plan.

“No,” Hopper cut him off. “Absolutely not. Not happening.”

“But we’re starting a new campaign! I really want to teach her to play…”

Hopper kept shaking his head, exasperated. “I’m not risking her safety, sending her into your _bugged_ house, just so you can play some stupid board game together!”

“The lab got shut down! Nobody’s even listening to those bugs anymore.”

“We don’t know that! So we don’t risk it. What if your mom came down and saw her, huh?”

“If we hear my mom coming, then we’ll just get El to hide in the blanket fort.”

“Oh your blanket fort? Sounds like a really secure hiding place.”

“Hey, I hid El in that fort for a week and my parents never found her there!”

“Kid, this is not up for debate. She’s not coming over to your house.”

“ _Fine_.” Mike slumped in the passenger seat. “When do I get to see her then?”

“Same drill. You will wait and I’ll get word to you.”

“Why’s it always _you_ who gets to decide?! You’re not her dad!”

Mike knew this was a cheap shot. He knew with the birth certificate that Hopper had pretty much adopted El now. But he also knew El was struggling to adjust to the idea of Hopper as her father. She didn’t call him Dad yet. She definitely didn’t call him Papa.

“Enough,” Hopper sighed, sounding too bruised and weary to fight any longer. He brought his car to a stop at the end of Maple Street. “Get out. Go home. Make sure you’ve cooled off before your mom speaks to you...” He paused a moment, then added. “And just so you know…you won’t be visiting her at _all_ if I think you’re going to blow our cover. So quit it with the temper tantrums, Wheeler. Try to remember I’m on your side.”

“Yeah, whatever,” said Mike, climbing out and slamming the car door behind him.

Mike really was in a bad mood now. He didn’t know why he got like this, why he felt so angry all the time. If he snapped at Nancy these days then she’d just roll her eyes at him and mutter ‘ _hormones_ ’. But it wasn’t just that. There was part of Mike that hadn’t still stopped being mad at Hopper for keeping El a secret from him for the best part of a year. And even though Mike knew she was okay now, even though he kinda understood why Hopper had hidden her away like he did…he still hadn’t quite forgiven the man for not telling him.

Mike really was going to end up taking it out on his mom if she started pestering him with questions the moment he got home. Which she almost certainly would do. So Mike stepped off the sidewalk and decided to cut across the field. He’d sneak back into the house through the basement. Then maybe he could get up to his room and latch the door before anyone realized he was back.

Mike slipped through the backdoor. He planted his foot on the first of the wooden steps. Then he froze.

There was someone down in the basement, he realized. Someone was _crying_ down here.

The small whimpering sound was coming from the blanket fort. Mike pulled its curtain back and found his little sister Holly sitting inside, her knees clutched to her chest and tears streaming her face.

“Holly, what’s wrong?” asked Mike, crouching before her. “What are you doing down here?”

“Hiding...” she whispered, snotty and shaking all over.

Mike swallowed. He was suddenly aware of the smell inside the fort. His baby sister was so scared she’d wet herself.

“Who are you hiding from?” Mike asked, whispering also.

“Bad men...” said Holly, her tiny voice trembling.

Mike’s blood ran cold. Those two little words prickled his skin all over.

“Where?” he asked, somehow holding his nerve.

Holly raised a shaky finger and pointed it up the stairs.

Mike nodded. “Are mom and dad up there too?”

Holly pushed her lip out and more tears rolled down her cheeks.

“They…they wouldn’t wake up,” she said.

Hearing these words, the chill in Mike’s blood broke out into a cold sweat. His...his parents wouldn’t wake up? What did that mean? No, it...it couldn’t mean they were dead. No _please,_ they couldn’t be dead. _Oh God_ , what if the bad men had already killed them?

“Stay here,” he mouthed to Holly, holding a finger to his lips.

Mike had to know. He crawled up the stairs on his hands until he reached the top landing. From here Mike could see through to the living room. He could see his dad sleeping in the La-Z-Boy, like always. He didn’t look hurt. But that didn’t give Mike much comfort…

There was a man standing at the window, peering through the curtains. A fat man with a bald head. Mike couldn’t see his face to tell if he recognized him. But it was clear that this man was watching the street outside his house. He was lying in wait. With a shudder Mike realized…if he’d come in through the front door he’d have already been caught. He held his breath and tiptoed back down the stairs.

Once he was down in the basement again he reached into the blanket fort and pulled Holly out, scooping her up in his arms and shushing her when she started to cry again. He carried his little sister out the backdoor. He had to get her away from here. He had to…

…but he couldn’t just leave his parents with that man. He couldn't leave them.

If the bad men from the lab were back then it must be Mike who they’d come for. Well, him or Nancy. But his sister had gone over to the Byers house earlier that day to study with Jonathan. She was in the habit of sleeping over there these days so most likely she wouldn’t be coming home tonight. Which meant she’d be safe at least. But it also meant that it was down to Mike to save their parents. He couldn’t just leave them there. Even if they were lame parents, he couldn’t just…

“Holly,” said Mike, setting his little sister down on her feet. “I need you to run.” He pointed across the grass. “Run to Lucas’s house. Knock on the door. Tell them to call the police!”

Holly shook her head in confusion, her little hands clinging to Mike’s jeans.

“Or just get away from here, okay?” he said, prying her fingers away. “Just run and hide! Like in hide and seek. Go now…GO!”

Holly jumped at his tone and took off running across the grass. Mike knew he should probably run after her but…he just couldn’t. If that man upstairs had done something to his parents then…he had to know. He had to at least try to rescue them. He couldn't let them die because of him. He turned back to the house, rushing into the basement and ducking into the blanket fort. He grasped for his Supercom.

“Lucas, do you copy?!” he hissed. “Code red, Lucas, code…”

 _“Code red?”_ A sarcastic little girl’s voice. _“Is this another one of your nerd games?”_

Mike gritted his teeth. “Erica…I need you to get Lucas right now.”

 _“Lucas went to the arcade with that ginger girl and the other nerd with the dorky cap,”_ Erica radioed back. _“Why don’t you go play your stupid games there and quit bothering me with your nonsense all the damn…”_

Mike suddenly slapped down the long antenna of his walkie talkie.

He’d heard something. _Feet_. Feet coming down the stairs.

Mike held his breath, but knew it probably wouldn’t do him much good. He was about to be caught. He pressed himself back against the basement wall and felt himself sitting on something hard. He frowned, pawing under the cushions. There was plastic beneath his hands. It…it was his Millennium Falcon. _That’s right._ Mike had hidden it here after his mom had threatened to take it for her next yard sale. He gently eased the spaceship out from under him, clutching it in both hands.

At that moment, the curtain of his hiding place was thrown back.

A fat bald man who Mike didn’t recognize stood over him.

The man’s eyes widened and he made a grab for Mike. But he didn’t get the chance. Mike smashed the Millennium Falcon hard against the fat man’s jaw, knocking him onto the carpet. Mike got out of the fort, hopping over the man’s legs. He didn’t give him any time to recover. He brought the spaceship down on the back of the man’s head, so hard this time that his treasured toy broke into two pieces.

It was a worthy end to a fine ship. It had succeeded in its mission. The fat man stayed down.

Mike ran upstairs into the living room. He knelt beside the La-Z-Boy.

“Dad!” he screamed, shaking him by the arm. “DAD!”

His dad didn’t move, wouldn’t open his eyes. Mike put a shaky hand to his dad’s mouth. He could still feel him breathing. He was alive, but...but he must've been given something, he must’ve been sedated, put to sleep...Mike looked around for his mom and he noticed her laying on the couch through in the study. Unlike his dad, Mike's mom never fell asleep on the couch. Rushing over to her side, Mike found her in the same condition. She was breathing, but she was dead asleep. _Drugged_. Not waking up.

The man in the basement though...he might be waking up.

Mike ran through to the kitchen and grabbed the biggest knife he could find in the drawer. He couldn’t physically carry his parents to safety but he’d be ready to defend them if the bad man came back upstairs. With his other hand, Mike reached for the phone and pressed it between his shoulder and ear. His first thought was to call Hopper, but he realized he wouldn’t be back at the cabin yet. So he started dialing the Byers house instead. He needed to tell Nancy not to come home. He needed her to get help…

Mike finished dialing. He waited for it to ring, but...

But nothing. _Nothing_. The line was dead.

Then a hand came out of nowhere. It caught Mike by the wrist, twisting it painfully. The knife slipped from his grasp and clattered onto the kitchen floor. Another hand gripped the back of his neck and pushed him face down on the kitchen counter. Having lost hold of his weapon, Mike thrust back his elbow hard into his attacker’s stomach. Whoever had hold of him was winded enough to loosen their grip a little. Mike was able to twist his neck to see who it was pinning him down.

A tall thin man with white hair stood over him. The white hair was much longer than it’d been before, hanging to the man's shoulders…but the face was the same. Mike had never forgotten his face. Even though he’d spent the last nineteen months believing (hoping?) this man was dead.

 _Brenner._ It was Doctor Brenner. He was…

Before Mike could even think any further, he felt a sharp pinch at the side of his neck. A needle being plunged into his skin, followed by a rush of numbness taking over his body. A needle full of sedative, like the one Max had once used on Billy. Brenner had probably used the same stuff on his parents. Now it was in him and…Mike’s knees sagged beneath him and he sank onto the floor. His vision was already blurring, going dark at the edges. He kept his eyes open just long enough to see the fat bald man staggering up from the basement, rubbing the back of his head. Then his lids gave up and his mind slipped away…

Mike wasn’t sure how long he was out for.

When he woke up again it was to the smell of strong chemicals and a rag being held under his nose. He tried to jerk away from it but found he was handcuffed to a gurney, each wrist chained to its sidebars and tight straps across his torso and legs.

Mike coughed and spluttered and the rag was pulled away anyway.

“Sorry Michael,” said a voice. “We need you awake now.”

Mike blinked against the harsh white light hanging over him. As his eyes adjusted he saw that he was in some small windowless room with grey concrete walls. The two bad men who had invaded his home were there looming over him. Doctor Brenner was smiling pleasantly.

“Why…” Mike rasped. “Why do you need me?”

“Well actually…” Brenner went on. “It’s not really _you_ I need. But you’re the one who can get me what I want.”

Mike's throat constricted. _El,_ he thought _._ "You want El," he blurted out loud.

“As you may remember…" Brenner continued. "We had some trouble the last time we attempted to capture our little runaway. I realize now that she’s much too strong to taken by force. We can't overpower her and she won’t come quietly. But she’ll come for you, Michael.”

Mike raised his head from the mattress, straining against his cuffs.

“If she does come,” he said, glaring at Brenner and his henchman. “I hope you’re both ready to feel your brains being crushed inside your skulls.”

Brenner’s smile didn’t falter. “That’ll depend,” he said evenly.

“Depend on what?” asked Mike.

“On who…or _what_ …she believes has taken you.”

Mike frowned, but before he could ask any further questions, the fat man approached the other side of the gurney and forced a large hunk of plastic between Mike's lips. It was some sort of mouth guard. It gripped his teeth, holding his jaws open and muffling his moans.

“Hold still, Michael,” said Brenner, his voice almost soothing as he dragged over a metal table on wheels loaded up with medical equipment. “This will not be pleasant. But we need to empty your stomach. For what's about to happen next…we can’t risk you throwing up and choking on your own vomit. Now, just try to relax.”

Brenner’s voice was calm and clinical as he made this horrifying statement. He gave a nod to the fat man who tilted the top of the gurney so Mike was sitting upright. Then he started feeding a thin plastic tube through a hole in the center of the mouth guard. Mike gagged as it hit the back of his throat, but there was nothing he could do to stop it. His eyes watered as he felt the tube being forced down all the way to his belly. He squeezed his eyes closed. His body tensed as he felt the saline being poured in and then his stomach contents being pumped out.

And then it was over. The tube was removed. Mike lay gasping, drenched in sweat.

Somewhere far off, he heard Brenner saying, “It's time we moved him.”

Before he had a moment to recover, he felt the gurney moving. Mike opened his eyes and saw he was being wheeled through a series of tunnels, all of them grey stone and without windows. Wherever they were, he had the feeling that it was somewhere underground. Like some sort of military bunker. Or…or a dungeon.

The gurney halted outside a door. Here the two men removed the cuffs and straps and lifted Mike off the bed. After the sedatives and stomach pump he was too weak to fight them. It was a struggle just to stand. The men held him up between them as they brought him to the door. Mike raised his head, his eyes growing wide as they opened it.

The room before him was dark, cold and filled from floor to ceiling with thick black vines. White spores floated in the air all around them. A red light was glowing from the far wall.

“A gate…” Mike realized in horror, trying to pull back. “You opened another gate.”

Brenner snorted a laugh. “No Michael, we haven’t opened a new gate. Not yet at least.” The doctor patted Mike on the shoulder. “But I’m pleased to hear how convincing you find my recreation. I worked very hard on it. I studied all the tapes that my contacts sent me from the lab. I studied that other world very carefully. I wanted it to look perfect.”

“It's...fake?” Mike blinked at his surroundings. “This is all fake? Why??”

Brenner didn’t answer. The two men just nodded to each other and proceeded to drag Mike into the center of their artificial shadow world, sitting him down with his back against a thin dark pillar. Brenner cuffed his hands behind him again while the fat man dragged a coil of black vines over and started looping them around Mike’s legs. And suddenly Mike didn’t need to ask why anymore. He knew what Brenner was doing, what his plan was. He knew that when El realized he was gone, that she was going to use her powers to search for him. And if she saw him here then…then she was going to think that he was trapped inside the Upside Down. He was _bait_.

“That…that’s why you want her,” Mike rasped. “You want her to open a new gate.”

“Not the only reason,” said Brenner. “But yes Michael. You’ve got the idea.”

He shook his head in disbelief. “Are you insane? Why would you do that? Don’t you understand?! If the shadow monster is let out of that place, then he’ll kill us all!”

“No monster from that place will kill me,” Brenner said calmly.

“Oh yeah?" Mike scoffed. "How do you know that exactly?”

Brenner's smile lengthened. “That creature which came through the wall of your school…as you can see, that didn’t kill me. It left me alive, left me without a scratch…it was a remarkable thing, Michael. The monster pounced on me, pinned me to the floor. Then it sniffed me. I could tell in that moment that it recognized me…and it chose to let me live. Do you want to know why?”

Mike said nothing, knowing the old psycho would tell him whether he wanted to hear or not.

“Because even a monster is loyal to the one who helps it escape its cage,” said Brenner. “You should know that. After all…it’s the reason Eleven is so loyal to you.”

Mike twisted his neck to glare at the man. “She’s not a monster.”

“Oh but she is. A very special kind of monster. A powerful miracle of a monster.”

Brenner’s tone was loving and tender. If Mike hadn’t already had the contents of his stomach flushed out then it would've made him puke. Before he could tell the old scientist what a demented creep he was, there was another plastic tube being forced into his mouth. It was thicker than the last one, but it wasn’t pushed down his throat this time. Mike looked down his nose and realized that it’d been decorated to look like one of those netherworld tentacles. The fat man was fixing it to his face with some sort of glue.

“Just a breathing tube, Michael,” Brenner soothed. “And of course, it’ll stop you from giving the game away…when she comes looking for you.”

Mike moaned, struggling uselessly, imagining how El would see him. And how she'd try to save him.

“We’ll leave you now,” said Brenner. “We'll be back once our objective is achieved.”

With that, Brenner and the fat man headed out of the door, shutting it on Mike and leaving him in darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case any of you are wondering...the 'fat man' in this chapter is Ray Carroll, the guy who Eleven almost killed, then showed mercy to in 'The Lost Sister'. I'm already predicting that Carroll will go to Brenner and tell him that he saw Eleven and Eight. I think that'll be what puts Brenner back on El's trail and brings him back to Hawkins in S3.


	4. Party Member in Trouble

“Breathe, just breathe,” said Hopper as they drove. “Stay with me, kid...”

Hopper had been telling El to breathe, in _nice deep breaths_ , all the way to the Byers house. He’d had limited success in preventing her from hyperventilating. Whenever El shut her eyes, she thought of Mike. She thought of him in that place. Sharp screams kept tearing out of her. One of them had put a crack in the passenger side window and almost caused Hopper to skid off the road. El wasn’t doing it on purpose. Her powers were out of control. She needed to get a hold of herself otherwise she was going to crash the car.

“El, listen to me…” Hopper took one hand off the wheel to squeeze her wrist. “You have to realize that if someone…or _something_ …has taken Mike…it may be because they want to get to _you_. So you can’t let them get to you, kid. Understand me?”

El just shook her head, her stomach lurching. She knew it. She’d already thought of it herself. That Mike had been taken because of her. That Mike being hurt was her fault. If Hopper thought confirming her worst fear would get her to toughen up then he was wrong. It just tipped her deeper into despair. She’d never felt so powerless.

She opened her eyes as she felt the Chevy grinding to a halt. Blinking through tears, she saw Mrs Byers stood out on her porch with Will, Lucas and Dustin clustering around her. Hopper helped El out of the passage seat, supporting her into the house. Joyce and the boys looked at her with concern as they followed her inside.

“Hop, I…I brought the boys here from school,” Joyce stammered, her voice flustering. “I wrote Will a sick note...the other two just kind of jumped in the back. They wanted to start searching for Mike right away. Nobody’s seen him at school. And Nancy, she stayed over here last night. She and Jonathan have gone over to check the Wheeler house. Karen’s not picking up the phone and Lucas says that nobody was answering their front door this morning. And the neighbors say they haven’t seen Mike either…”

“She’s seen him,” said Hopper as he lowered El onto the couch.

“You’ve seen Mike?” Will blinked at her. “How did you…?”

“With her _mind_ ,” Dustin swiftly explained. “Well, where the hell is he?”

El tensed, not wanting to say it. Not wanting it to be real.

“Trapped,” she said in a low whimper. “Upside-down.”

She looked up just in time to see the boys eyes widen and their faces all fall. Mrs Byers covered her mouth, looking like she might be sick at this news. Just at that moment, the phone rang. Joyce flinched and then rushed over to answer while the boys just kept staring on at El and Hopper sat on the arm of the couch, clutching her shoulder.

“You…you’re sure that’s where he is?” asked Lucas.

El nodded. “We have to hurry. It’s _bad_.”

That's all she could manage. If she had to talk about the tentacle she’d seen reaching down Mike’s throat she was going to end up breaking more windows.

“But that’s impossible,” said Dustin. “You closed the gate!”

Lucas shrugged. “Those scientists must’ve opened it up again.”

“Those scientists do not have superpowers!” Dustin waved a frantic hand at El. “If they want to tear holes into other dimensions, then they need her to do it for them!”

Lucas rolled his eyes. “Her name is _Eleven_ , Numbnuts! Clearly there were others like her who got experimented on. One of them must’ve done it!”

El blinked rapidly, her mind going immediately to Kali. Her lost sister who she hadn’t looked for, not even in her mind, since she’d left her that night in Chicago. She knew that her sister hadn’t wanted her to leave. She’d suspected that Kali would be angry with her even. But she didn’t think that Kali would ever do this to her. She’d never hurt someone who El cared about to force her to return to the city. Dustin was right though. If a new gate had been opened, then it must have been opened by someone with powers. Kali’s powers were different to her own, but maybe she could've done it. Or...or maybe someone had _forced_ her do it…

Dustin and Lucas were still bickering, interrupting her thoughts.

“But why would those scientists open a new gate anyway?” Dustin argued. “The ones who _are_ still alive, I mean. Seeing as most of them ended up as Demodog meat the last time.”

“Who the hell cares why?!” Lucas snapped at him. “The point is…somehow they’ve made a new gate. And something got out of it and it’s taken Mike. So we need to get him back. We need to make a gate of our own.” He knelt before El, grasping her elbow. “You can do that, right?”

“No, she _can’t_ ,” said Hopper, sternly. “She already tried to back at the cabin and look what it’s done to her. We shouldn’t be opening any more holes to that place. We can’t let it spill out into our town again. We do that and more people will be taken. More people will die.”

“But we can’t just leave Mike to…” Lucas began to protest.

“Nobody’s leaving Mike,” Hopper said firmly. “We need to find this new gate that’s already open...the one that Mike has been taken through. And when we find it, I’m going to go in there and I’m going to get him back. _That’s_ the plan.” El glanced at him and shuddered at the thought of Hopper straying into the dark place too. He clamped a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “I’ll get him out, kid. And once we’re safe, you’ll need to save your strength for closing gates, not opening them.”

“So…so how do we find this new gate?” asked Lucas.

“Already on it!” said Dustin from across the room.

They all turned their heads to see Dustin pacing the floorboards, his compass in his hand. He came to an abrupt halt, frowning.

“Makes no damn sense,” he muttered. “It keeps pointing north. _True_ north. No disruption in the magnetic field. No pull towards a new portal...”

“What does that mean?” asked Lucas.

“It means…it means there _is_ no gate!” said Dustin.

“Then why’s El seeing Mike in the Upside-down!” Lucas turned to face her. “Are you _sure_ that’s where you saw him?” he implored again.

“I…I don’t…” El faltered. “He was…”

She’d never been wrong before. But she wanted more than anything for her last vision to be a false one. She was still scared to close her eyes and search for him again. It was like stepping into her worst nightmare. One that wasn’t over when she woke up.

Suddenly Joyce hurried over them again, having just hung up the phone.

“That was Jonathan…” she told them, her voice still jittery. “Him and Nancy just unlocked the Wheeler house to find Karen and Ted passed out in their living room. He says that after they woke them up, neither of them could even remember anything from the night before. He said that they were both really foggy…like they’d been _drugged_. But…but there was no sign of forced entry to the house. No signs of any struggle, nothing broken or stolen…”

“Except for Mike,” Hopper interjected.

“Mike wasn’t the only one missing,” said Joyce. “When Nancy and Jonathan first got to the house, they found that Holly was gone too.”

“What?” said Lucas. “His baby sister's been taken too?”

“No,” said Joyce. “No, Holly’s okay. She was found in your backyard, Lucas. Hiding in your sister’s playhouse. Jonathan said your mom brought her home just a few minutes after he and Nancy arrived. They think that Holly was in that playhouse all night. And when they asked Holly why she was hiding there, she…she’d only say one thing…”

“What?” asked Hopper. “What did she say?”

“ _Bad men_. Holly said she was hiding from the bad men.”

A fearful hush fell over the group again. Dark scenarios were forming in their minds. El watched it all unfold in her own head like it was one of her dream circle visions. The bad men coming in the night, drugging the Wheeler parents, scaring little Holly and then stealing Mike away. If it was the bad men who’d taken Mike and sent him into the Upside-down then…then Hopper was right. They were using Mike as bait. The bad men were doing this to get to her. And it was working. Already El knew it…

She’d go back to the lab _willingly_ if they’d only promise to let Mike go.

But before El could take that thought any further, a car horn sounded outside the house.

Dustin rushed to the window, pulling back the drapes. “That’ll be Steve...”

“What? Steve?” Hopper squinted. “Steve _Harrington_?”

“Yeah,” said Dustin. “We recruited him for our mission.”

“It was Max’s idea,” added Lucas. “Soon as I told her something bad had happened at the Wheeler house, she had a pretty good idea who might be behind it.”

“Looks like they brought the suspect with them,” Dustin called from the window.

“What...what the hell are you talking about?” Hopper spluttered.

His question was answered in the next second as Max opened the front door. She marched into the Byers living room, swinging the nail bat by her side. She was closely followed by Steve dragging another person into the house with him, a boy around his height but with a brawnier build. This boy’s hands were tied behind this back and there was a hood covering his head.

“You are so dead, Harrington!” the boy was yelling under the bag. “You hear me? _Dead!_ ”

Hopper put his hands to his forehead, looking lost for words.

"What...what did you do?" the Sheriff murmured.

“He knows something,” said Max, looking to Lucas. “I can tell. He went over to the Wheeler house just last night. And then he bunked off school this morning to lay around in bed, drinking beers…like he was _celebrating_ something.” Max reached into the pocket of her hoodie. “Me and Steve found this on him when we searched him.”

She produced a rolled up wad of cash. El narrowed her eyes on it. She still didn’t really understand money but she got the feeling that whatever amount Max was holding...it was _a lot._ She realized that the boy who they’d brought over here was the bad Billy boy. The boy who Mike hadn't wanted hanging around his mom.

Lucas glanced over at Hopper. “Code red situation, Chief,” he said. “Time to get serious.”

Hopper frowned at the money in Max’s hand. Then slowly he began to nod.

“Right...” he said. “Let’s get him to the shed then.”

Hopper grabbed their captive from the other side and he helped Steve to drag him out to the back yard and then into the shed. The walls inside the Byers shed were still decorated with random bits of cloth, cardboard and silver foil, making it look like a strange patchwork interrogation room. The group hauled the Billy boy inside that space and sat him down with his back to a post in the center of the room. Hopper turned and halted El at the door, waving for her to back away.

“Not you,” he said in a hushed voice. “He mustn’t see you.”

El stepped back with a hiss of frustration as the shed door was shut on her. Glancing over her shoulder she saw that she wasn’t the only one who had remained outside. Will Byers had lingered at the back porch, seeming nervous to even draw near to the shed. El still hadn’t spent much time with Will. But Mike talked about him so often that he already felt like a close friend. Through Mike, El had learned that Will had a bad history with this particular shed. She knew that it was the place that Will had first been taken by the Demogorgan. That it was the place where Will had been tied up by his family and friends who had been desperately trying to reach him when the Shadow Monster had taken hold. El could understand how Will felt about going near to the shed. It was the same thing that she always felt about going anywhere close to the lab.

“Do you want to borrow some clothes?” Will asked her.

El looked down at herself. She was still dressed in nothing but the big t-shirt she wore for bed. She nodded and Will disappeared into his room. El paced outside the shed, listening to the interrogation inside. Max had said that her stepbrother had been drinking beer and El guessed it might be for this reason why his answers were spilling out of him so fast. Listening in she heard the Billy boy reveal that Mike’s mom had given him a spare key to the house when she’d hired him to do some plumbing job. Billy then admitted that just last week a man had approached him on his way home from the Wheelers and he'd offered Billy a lot of money in exchange for a copy of the Wheeler's key.

“So...so you just gave some shady guy the keys to a family home?!” ranted Steve.

“I figured he was a burglar,” said Billy, laughter and smarm in his voice. “I figured the Wheelers must have some heirloom hidden away that was worth stealing. What did I care?!”

“You didn’t _care_ that this guy could be a killer or a kidnapper?” Steve went on.

“Oh, don't you preach to me about _kidnapping_ , Harrington!” Billy yelled back. “And for the record…I couldn’t give a rat’s ass about any of those little shits in your babysitter club. That guy was offering me good money. And there’s been two extra mouths to feed in my house since we moved out here and neither of them are bringing any cash in. But I guess that a spoiled rich bitch like you wouldn’t know anything about that.”

El listened in, her fists tightening at her sides. She didn’t know yet exactly who this bad man or the bad _men_ were who’d taken Mike. But there was one man who was sitting right through that shed door. And he was partly to blame for what had happened. And all she had to do was raise her hand. Not even that. All she had to do was concentrate her mind…and inside that shed, in a matter of seconds, there would be no more bad Billy. There would be nothing but a corpse on the floor with blood dripping from its eyes...

“Hey El?” said a voice behind her, snapping her out of her murderous rage. “You want to see if these fit?”

She turned to see Will standing behind her holding out a pair of blue jeans and a checked shirt. El took a deep breath to steady herself. It was important to keep breathing. Then she nodded and followed Will into the house. Will ushered her into his bedroom, then stood beside the door, averting his eyes as she slipped into the borrowed clothes.

“El…” said Will from outside of the room. “I…I think Dustin’s right.”

“What?” said El as she zipped up the slightly too small jeans.

“I think Dustin’s right that there's no new gate,” Will clarified. “I don’t think Mike is in the Upside Down at all. In fact I…I know he isn’t.”

“You… _know_?” asked El, throwing Will’s shirt on loosely over her shoulders.

She hurried to the bedroom door and stood looking Will in the eye.

“How?” she urged him. “How do you know?”

Will swallowed. “Because…because I still see that place. If I want to see it, which I usually don’t…it’s like, I can just slip the slide across and look into that darkness.” Will suddenly looked panicked and guilt-ridden. “But that doesn’t mean the shadow monster is still controlling me, okay? I saw flashes of the Upside Down for a whole _year_ before that thing took possession of me. And even though he's gone, I still see them now. It’s like…it's like what Mike called it…”

“True sight,” said El, understanding.

“ _Yeah_...I still have true sight.”

She nodded. “Super spy.”

Will held her stare, nodding along with her. “Since I found out Mike was missing this morning, I’ve been searching for him in the Upside Down. I’m pretty sure that if he was there, then...then I’d have seen him by now. I’d have _felt_ it. But I haven’t seen or felt anything at all.”

“So…so why am I seeing Mike there?” asked El.

Will shrugged. “Maybe the bad men are trying to trick you?” he suggested. “Maybe this bad man that Billy let into Mike’s house is giving you a false vision somehow. Maybe he just wants you to _think_ Mike's in the Upside Down because he wants you to open a new gate.” Will paused a moment, wincing. “Do you know anyone who might do that?”

El tensed, not wanting to say it. But of course she knew...

“Yes,” she said, her voice dry and hollow. “ _Papa_.”

Will frowned. “Okay…do you think you can find him?”

She was already trembling. She’d never even tried looking for Papa before.

“Y-yes,” she said haltingly. “Yes, I can find him.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaghhh! This one was such a pain to write. Soooo much exposition to get through. I hope those of you who've subscribed are still into this fic. It'll be back to more fun times with Mike and Brenner in the next installment.


	5. Dungeon Master

Mike had got one of his hands free a few hours ago.

The fat man hadn’t fastened the cuffs tight enough, but it was mostly thanks to his skinny wrists and his fingers slippery with sweat, that Mike had managed to wrench a hand loose. He still wasn’t sure what good it would do him. His thumb was swollen and throbbing, possibly broken from the pressure it’d taken to squeeze it out of the steel bracelet. Since freeing his hand, he’d been working on easing one elbow out of the thick black vines that’d been twined round his body. Mike had just reached a point where he was pretty sure he could rip one arm from the snare, then use it to tear the tube out of his mouth.

But what good would it do? Mike could shout out a warning, sure. He could yell that this was all a trick. That he wasn’t in the Upside-Down. But it’d be worthless unless somebody heard him. And the only person who stood a chance of hearing him was El. So Mike was biding his time. He was holding on for a sign, waiting till he sensed her listening.

Mike had felt something early that morning. A static buzz of fear in the air around him, the vibrations of a silent scream in his ear. It wasn’t that he’d heard El exactly. More like he’d felt her screaming his name, felt it in his bones. But that had been hours before his hand was free. If she’d seen him, Mike just had to hope she hadn’t done anything crazy. He had to hope she’d look again. That he’d get another chance to…

Suddenly he felt it. He felt the voice he couldn’t hear.

He felt El. She was close, calling a name. Only it wasn’t Mike’s name…

…this time she was calling _‘Papa’_.

Mike could feel the quiet rage in her silent voice. Like the rumble of a storm cloud ready to burst and fire down lightning bolts. It was the same voice El had used the night she’d stared down the Demogorgan and said _‘No more’_. Mike knew that she’d found him. What’s more El knew who’d taken him. And she was mad as all hell.

So this was it. Mike had to make a break for it. _Now._

Moving fast, he pulled his arm loose. Then yanked the tube from his mouth.

“El, can you hear me?!” he yelled, his voice cracking. “I’m not in the Upside Down! Don’t open the gate! He _wants_ you to open the gate…”

He panted for breath. There was no telling if she’d heard him or not, but he didn’t doubt that the bad men were listening. They’d be watching this room and they’d be here any moment. So Mike worked fast, wriggling free of the vines, crawling out of their tangled knots. His legs were numb after many hours of sitting in one constricted position. His knees trembled as he rose to his feet. Mike stared at the door ahead of him, knowing it would be locked, knowing that he stood no chance of breaking it down…

But fuck it, that wouldn’t stop him trying.

Mike took a run at it and as he made his charge, the door was thrown wide. The fat man was standing there, blocking his path, a syringe in his hand. Mike didn’t stop. He still had the handcuffs dangling from one wrist. When he reached the man, Mike swung his arm, striking him in the face, the metal cuff cracking against his jaw. The man staggered against the door frame, his nose bleeding afresh. Mike bolted into the hall.

He ran. He doubted there was anywhere to run to. No easy escape routes. But he could at least get a sense of where he was. And if El was still watching, then she’d be following him. Following as he tried to map out a floor plan of this bunker he was trapped in. The first thing that Mike noticed as he ran through the series of long concrete tunnels was that they were all completely empty and unguarded. It seemed like Dr Brenner did not have dozens of soldiers at his disposal anymore. He had no muscle backing him up. It really looked like it was just these two old men down here with him. Maybe Mike couldn’t get out. But if someone could get in…it wouldn’t take much to overpower his captors.

Mike turned the next corner and found Brenner standing in wait.

“There’s nowhere to go, Michael,” he said evenly, raising a hand in a seemingly peaceful gesture, like he was trying to calm a spooked horse. “Shall we do this the easy way or the hard way?”

Mike glanced down. In his other hand, the doctor was holding an electric cattle prod. He turned back to see the fat man coming from behind, still holding the syringe along with a stunning rod of his own. Mike steeled himself. He wasn’t scared of these bastards. He’d been cornered by worse monsters than this. Troglodytes, Thessalhydras and Demogorgons. He and his party had fought them all many times and won their campaigns. This was his game. He was the fucking dungeon master. He’d already knew his next action.

 _Fireball the son of a bitch_...Mike thought, Dustin's voice in his mind.

He ran at Brenner with a scream of rage. The doctor staggered back, caught off-guard. He raised the rod to strike. But he was a tall man, too tall it turned out. He thrust the stunning rod out too high while Mike ducked low as he charged at him, aiming a swift kick at his shins. After avoiding an electric shock, Mike kept on running. The two old men were left limping after him. Around the next turn lay a dead end. But there was an iron ladder against the wall, leading up to a hatch in the ceiling. With nowhere else to go, Mike climbed the ladder. He reached the escape hatch, but found it locked, immovable.

“Hey!” said Mike, punching the metal seal. “Can anyone hear me! _Help_!”

Mike stopped his punching a moment. There was a small window in the hatch door. Peering through its glass, Mike could see daylight. The setting sun at least. The sky above was dusky and orange, quickly turning to evening. The dimming sky wasn’t all he could see…

“Trees,” he murmured. “There’s _trees_ ,” he repeated, a little louder.

He didn’t know if it would help. He didn’t know if El was still listening.

The next moment, Mike felt a burning shock surge up his leg as one of the electric rods was thrust against his calve. He screamed, his hands slipping from the rungs. He was caught by awaiting arms at the foot of the ladder. He went limp in their hold, the shock sapping the last of his strength. Mike felt his sleeve rolled back and then the sharp prick of a needle being plunged in his bicep. The numbness returned and his mind slipped away…

When Mike woke again, he was back on the gurney, strapped down.

He could just about lift his head. Looking down at himself, he could see a drip in his arm and a blood pressure cuff around his ankle. His head was foggy and he couldn’t feel the aches and pains he knew were there in his wrists and back. He guessed that he was being fed some sort of muscle relaxant through the tube in his arm. Twisting his neck, Mike saw he’d been wheeled into a different room. A surveillance room with a control desk and a wall plastered with TV monitors. Brenner and his henchman stood watching the screens. Their eyes were fixed on one monitor in particular. Squinting Mike could see two figures standing in the center of the frame – one of them small and slim, the other tall and broad.

Mike knew them right away. It was El and the Chief.

He swallowed hard, his skin prickling. He didn’t know if he was relieved or afraid to see them.

Brenner heard Mike stirring behind him and glanced over his shoulder.

“She’s close,” the doctor informed him. “She's very close now...”

“They’ve figured it out,” said Mike, full of contempt. “They know I’m not in the Upside Down. She won’t be opening any new gates for you, asshole.”

“We’ll see,” Brenner said smoothly. “Certainly I’ll have to resort to Plan B. I wouldn’t sound so relieved though, Michael. My second plan is worse for you than it is for me.”

Mike refused to be intimated by this veiled threat. Instead he focused on the screen. It was too dark to see exactly where El and Hopper were, but he could clearly see what they were doing. El was tying a blindfold around her eyes while the Chief stood close, guarding her. One hand rested on the trigger of the rifle slung over his shoulder.

“You know, I still can’t believe it…” said Brenner, shaking his head. “Of all the people who Eleven could’ve been hiding with…the Sheriff is the last person I would've expected to have taken her into his care.” He tilted his head at the screen. “It’s sad really…how much she seems to trust him. Considering what he did to her, that is.”

Mike frowned. “What are you talking about?”

Brenner turned around to face him. “You don’t know either, do you?” He smiled at Mike with a pitying expression. “It was Chief Hopper who led us to Eleven when you and your friends were hiding her at the school. He was the one who gave us your location.”

Mike stared at him. And…and at first, he didn’t feel anything at all. Maybe it was the drugs they’d given him. What Brenner had told Mike just refused to sink in.

“You…you’re lying,” he said, limply.

Brenner’s smile lengthened. “Bright boy like you, I’m surprised you haven’t figured this out already. The Chief needed to access our portal to rescue your friend Will Byers. He had nothing else to bargain with. But of course...you shouldn’t judge him harshly for what he did. He may have betrayed her, but he made the right choice. He was a Sheriff looking out for his town. He knew that me taking Eleven back to the lab would’ve been the best way to keep the people of Hawkins safe. And it seems like, even after I went into hiding…he took charge of locking her away himself.”

Mike swallowed against the hardening lump in his throat.

“He…he was protecting her,” he said.

Brenner raised an eyebrow. “Is that what he told you?”

Mike blinked rapidly and tears slipped from the corners of his eyes. His head was spinning. It couldn’t be true. It just couldn’t. The Chief wouldn’t…but in the pit of his stomach he knew. It all made sense. Hopper was the one who’d cut all those deals with the lab, who had got them all to sign the confidentiality forms. It made sense that it'd started with El. Like Brenner said, he’d had nothing else to bargain with.

“It was the right judgement call,” Brenner affirmed again. “He’s not a bad man, Michael. And though you might find it hard to believe…I’m not a bad man either. Just as the Sheriff is trying his best to protect his town, I’m trying to do what’s best for our country. Do you think the Russians have any weapon that could possibly match Eleven and that dark world she can open up? See…I’m not doing any of this to be cruel. I’m a scientist, a pioneer in my field. And how could any ambitious scientist give up on his work when he’s made the discoveries that I have? You understand what I'm saying, don’t you, Michael? I hear that science is your favorite subject at school.”

Mike shuddered, refusing to meet his gaze. He felt sick wondering how Brenner knew what classes he liked at school. He wondered how long the old psycho had been watching him and planning this. Mike felt sickest of all as he stared back up at the screen and he saw El standing blindfolded beside the Chief. The man who’d said that he was protecting her, even though he’d held her prisoner in a cabin for the best part of two years. Even though he'd tried to trade El back to the lab. Who's to say he wouldn’t try to trade her again?

Mike strained his neck, watching El with dread and concern. He saw the blood drip from her nose.

Then suddenly everything in the room started to shake. Objects trembled on the counter tops, medical utensils rattled on their silver trays and the lights flickered on and off above their heads. Brenner stared up at the naked bulb hanging over them, still smiling.

“Incredible...” he marveled. “This bunker is built to withstand a nuclear blast and yet with her powers she can still reach us down here.” He narrowed his eyes on the light. “Eleven? Can you hear me? Do I have your attention?”

The lights and the TV screens continued to flash wildly.

“You need to calm yourself, child,” Brenner said tenderly. “Just focus on the light. One blink for yes, two blinks for no. _Can you hear me_?”

All the flashing and rattling in the room settled down. Mike stared up at the ceiling.

The light blinked once. _Yes_ , El was listening.

“Plan B then,” said Brenner, as if talking to himself.

He nodded to his partner and Mike heard something being wheeled towards his bed. He turned his head and he saw it. An ECT machine. Mike had seen one before. Mr Clarke had shown them in class. He…he knew what it did. He let out a panicked gasp and at that moment, he felt the mouth guard being shoved back between his teeth. He felt latex gloves holding his head and fixing the electrodes to his temples. He struggled against the straps but his body didn’t have the strength to do anything more than squirm and moan.

“Do you know what this machine does, Eleven?” Dr Brenner asked the light bulb.

There was silence for a moment. Everything in the bunker was suddenly very still.

Then the light blinked again. Yes, she knew. El knew only too well. She had told Mike the sad story of what Brenner had done to her mama. During one of his secret visits, she had spilled out the dream circle vision that they'd shared. She’d been breathless with tears at the end of the tale.

And suddenly Mike was feeling very scared. He’d been expecting Brenner to threaten him. He’d been prepared for them killing him even. Just like he’d been prepared to take a bullet for El when they came for her at the school. Just like he’d been willing to jump off a cliff. It wasn’t like Mike had no fear of death. It was more like there were just some things he couldn’t live with…like losing his friends, like bad things happening to those that he loved. Mike always felt like he’d rather die than let those things happen. But...but this? This wasn’t dying. El’s mama was still alive now, only she was trapped inside her head, reliving the same cycle of visions over and over, no hope of ever escaping the loop.

That was what this machine had done to her. And it could do the same to Mike.

“So are you listening to me, Eleven?” Brenner asked the light again.

Mike gripped the bars of the gurney, not sure what he should hope for.

The light blinked again. Yes, El was here. She was listening.

“Good,” said Brenner, stepping over to Mike’s bed.

He reached out, he clasped the dial…

...then he turned it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yep. I told you this was a dark fic. Are you scared yet?


	6. In the Shadows

Papa turned the dial. He turned the dial on Mike.

El’s scream shook the room again, putting cracks in several of the surveillance screens and turning their pictures into grey static fuzz. The light overhead flickered manically as Mike lay convulsing on the bed below. Papa stood beside his machine, watching Mike's fit with eyes cold and dispassionate. On the opposite side of the gurney, another man was holding Mike’s shoulders as his body thrashed in epileptic spasms.

“No!” El screamed, running up to the bed. “Nooooo!”

Papa turned the dial back and raised his hand up to the light in a halting motion.

“Calm,” he said softly. “Easy now. He’ll be okay…this time.”

El swiped the tears from her eyes and she looked down at Mike again. She watched as his tremors slowed and he lay still, his eyes falling closed and his head dropping to one side. The man at his bedside removed the electrodes and the mouth guard.

“He’s just passed out,” said Papa, gesturing to the machine. “That was a relatively mild dose of current I gave him. The therapeutic dose in fact. They still use it as treatment in some psychiatric hospitals like Pennhurst. He’ll probably wake up feeling better.”

Papa placed a hand on Mike’s clammy forehead. A gesture that looked tender but it was clearly meant to be taunting, reminding El of how he could touch Mike and she could not.

“I don’t want to hurt the boy, Eleven,” he told her. “I don’t want to hurt you either. I just need to ensure that you will not be attacking our current location. I needed to demonstrate the consequences that you or your friends can expect if you attempt a siege.”

El swallowed, still struggling to calm her shattered nerves. A siege had been the plan. When she had gone searching for Papa in her mind that afternoon, she had found Mike loose from his vines, running in a series of straight lines and yelling that he wasn’t in the upside-down, yelling that he was in some sort of bunker underground. Then Mike had climbed a ladder and said something about trees. So they had loaded up on weapons and taken to the roads that ran through Hawkins woods, El sitting shotgun beside Hopper in the police cruiser, clutching photos of Mike and Papa in her hands and trying to hone in on their location.

She’d found the spot in the woods a little after nightfall. She could sense the hatch doorway that was hidden within a cluster of trees. It was locked but El felt sure she could rip the metal seal open with her powers. Then her and Hopper could have gone down into that bunker and found the bad men. Hopper could have arrested them or shot them in the head, if she hadn’t snapped their necks first. They could have gone in there and ended Papa in a minute. Just one minute.

But it would only take Papa a second to turn the dial on Mike again.

“Eleven…if you threaten me, I will do it. You’ll leave me no choice. If I hear you coming then I’ll turn this dial up to 450. That’s the same dose we gave to your mother.” He glanced to the man on the other side of the gurney. “Ray here tells me that you know what happened to your mother. Did you pay a visit to her, Eleven? I’m sorry. That must’ve been a terrible reunion. I’m so sorry that you had to see her that way.”

El blinked away her tears again. Then for the first time looked over at the other man in the room. She hadn’t paid him any attention when she’d first slipped into this dream circle. All her focus had been on Papa, Mike and the machine. But she looked over at the man now and realized exactly who he was. It was Ray Carroll. It was the man who had turned the dial on her mama. The man who she’d had the chance to kill.

El barred her teeth, struggling to bite down her fury. Because now she was realizing what must have happened. She was realizing that this was all her fault. Ray Carroll had told her that Papa was still alive. He had offered to take her to him, to help her and Kali get their revenge. But it looked like after they had left him, Ray had gone back to his old employer to help him find her instead. It was Ray who must’ve told Papa that he’d seen her in Chicago. It was Ray who must’ve helped Papa to take Mike from his home.

If...if she’d only killed him when she had the chance. Kali had been right after all. She shouldn’t have shown mercy to a man who’d shown none to her or people she loved. Now she was paying the price. No worse… _Mike_ was paying it.

“Eleven, I have a deal I want to make with you,” said Papa. He wasn’t looking at the light anymore. He was looking down beside the bed to the place he must have imagined she was standing and watching. His eyes were dipping a little lower than her face. He was picturing her to be smaller. Papa hadn’t taken into account how much she’d grown since he saw her last. “So…are you ready to listen to me now?”

El swallowed. She blinked the light once. One time for yes.

“Good…” he said. “I’ve been wanting to talk with you for so long. I’ve missed you, child.” His face darkened. “But…but I can’t talk to you now. Not here and now. You’ve brought the Sheriff with you, Eleven. And those other friends of yours who are waiting by the cars at the roadside. They’re just going to get in the way. I need you to come to me again. Only this time I need you to come alone. I want you to come home, Eleven.”

El trembled as she realized what Papa meant. He wanted her to meet him at the lab. And with that thought it suddenly didn’t matter how much she’d grown or how strong her powers had become. She was a frightened little girl again, terrified of what Papa would do if she said no to any of his demands. She remembered how when she was very small, when she’d first tried to say no to his experiments, Papa had taken her favorite doll away from her. And then later he’d brought the doll back without her head. El had cried for days, unable to sleep or eat. If Papa broke Mike the way that he used to break her toys, she didn’t think her tears would ever stop.

“Ray here searched the lab a few days ago,” Papa was saying. “It may have been shut down since last November, but he says all our old equipment is still there. Even the bathtub, Eleven. We hear that they’re keeping everything in storage until the media frenzy over Miss Holland’s death dies down. There’s still hope that after the inquest is resolved and the parents are duly compensated our scientists might return to their work. I’d like to be a part of that work, Eleven. And I think you need to be part of our work too.”

El’s heart pounded against her ribs. No, _no_...she couldn’t go back to Papa, she couldn’t let him use her in that way again. But above all else...she couldn’t let him hurt Mike. She couldn’t let him do to Mike what he’d done to mama. _Anything_ but that.

“Tomorrow morning, I want you to come and meet me,” said Papa. “Don’t tell any of your friends where you are going. Don’t tell the Sheriff. I want you to come to Hawkins lab as soon as you can get away after sunrise. I’ll be waiting for you there. I’ll be waiting in your old room.” Papa smiled pleasantly then looked down at Mike again. “I won’t be bringing him with me. He’ll stay here with Ray to look after him. But after you and I have talked...maybe I can call Ray from the lab. Maybe I can ask him to let Mike go. Or at least, let you see him."

Papa reached towards her. His hands turned to smoke in her hair.

"Can you agree to those terms, Eleven?”

El didn’t even think. The light just blinked above them. One blink for yes.

“Good,” he said, smiling proudly. “Go now...”

El gasped as the smoke around them grew into a denser cloud and she felt herself being wrenched out of her dream circle. She felt herself being pulled back through waves of darkness, pulled away from Papa and away from Mike. Then she woke up breathless in Hopper’s arms. At some point during her vision she must have collapsed to the ground. Her blindfold had fallen away and her nose was streaming blood over her lips.

“Hey, hey, I got you,” Hopper soothed. “I got you...”

“I…I’m sorry,” El choked out, between sobs.

“Sorry?” He frowned. “What are you sorry for, kid?”

 _For making deals with Papa_ , she thought. _For agreeing to be his monster again._

“I…I couldn’t find him,” she lied. And she hated lying to Hop. Friends don't lie. They don't ever lie. But she couldn’t think what else to do. “I couldn’t find Mike. I thought he was close. But he’s not here.”

But Mike was here. She knew it. Papa’s secret bunker was right beneath them.

“ _Shit_ ,” Hopper muttered. He didn’t usually say bad words in front of her, but it seemed like he couldn’t help himself. “But...but you were screaming. Why were you screaming, El?”

“I just…I’m so scared. I want him back. I want him to be safe.”

Her tears overwhelmed her then. She clutched Hopper’s collar and cried into his jacket. Hopper whispered _‘I know, I know’_ into her ear. Hop reminded her of the promise that he had made that morning in the cabin. Then he lifted her in his arms and he carried her back towards the road. He carried her back to where the three cars were waiting, their engines humming in the hopes that they’d be making a getaway after a successful rescue mission.

El’s friends were all standing around those cars, waiting for them to return. Nancy held a shotgun in her hands, Steve had his nail bat while Jonathan was clutching a radio. Lucas and Dustin had come along with them too, despite Hopper’s protests, though all of them had agreed to hang back at the cars and only follow them into the woods if they were called for back up. Hopper hadn’t wanted to give Papa a chance to take any more hostages.

“What happened?” asked Dustin, rushing out ahead of the others.

“She couldn’t find him,” Hopper said flatly. “Mike’s not here.”

“What?” Lucas spluttered. “But she…she seemed so sure!”

Hopper sighed. “Must've been another false vision. That old psycho is screwing with her head somehow, making her see stuff that’s not real.”

“Can…can she try searching again?”

This last question came from Nancy, tearful and desperate.

Hopper gave her a stern look. “ _Look_ at her.”

El lifted her head and stared at Nancy through heavy-lidded eyes. She wanted to tell Nancy to hold on, that she _did_ know where Mike was and that she was going to get her brother back, whatever it took. But she didn’t say a thing. She couldn’t. Papa would know if she told. He had cameras everywhere, pointing down from the tops of trees...

Nancy lowered her head, crying too now. Jonathan took the shotgun out of her hands and put an arm around her.

“So what now?” Steve asked the Chief.

“We forget the supernatural," he said. "We search for Mike the regular way. The kid’s been missing for over twenty-four hours. He’s another missing child case in Hawkins, a suspected abduction. There’s already been search parties out looking for him tonight. State troopers will be arriving in town early tomorrow. The feds too probably. And I’m going to be expected to be heading up the investigation.” He glanced around at the party. “So I’ll be needing you kids to watch El for me while I’m gone. Keep her hidden. Keep her…calm.”

El resented the way that Hopper was talking about her like she wasn’t even there. He lowered her back into the passenger seat of his police cruiser, buckling her belt for her. Then he ordered Nancy and Jonathan to head back to the Wheeler house. He asked Steve to give Dustin and Lucas a ride home. Hop said that they’d be going back to the Byers house for the night. Joyce and Will had stayed at home-base, ready to call Dr Owens for help if something had gone terribly wrong and the party hadn’t returned from their rescue attempt.

Max meanwhile had gone home with Billy. After they’d finished interrogating him in the shed that morning, Max had promised to keep an eye on her step-brother to make sure that he wouldn’t cause them any further trouble. In Billy’s drunken rants, it’d come to light that (in addition to giving away his spare key to the Wheeler house) he'd also stopped by to see Karen before dinner last night. He had offered to help with the cooking and had then slipped a dose of liquid sedative into the casserole that Karen and Ted had eaten. Mike and Nancy had been out of the house before dinner while Holly had been fussy and had insisted on eating waffles instead. So the Wheeler kids had all escaped being drugged like their parents. After the interrogation in the shed was over, Dustin and Lucas had let Billy know that they’d recorded his entire confession and so both parties had come to an agreement to forget the whole business and to grudgingly go their separate ways.

That was what had gone down at the Byers house earlier that day. They’d come up with their action plan and rescue mission after sending Billy home. There had been a strong sense of purpose among the party. A sense that they were going to succeed. They'd all had hope of finding Mike before the day was out. That _El_ could find him. So it filled her with shame to be returning to the Byers house now. To be returning to Joyce and Will waiting out on the porch with no good news to give them. No victory over the bad men.

“Leave her be,” said Hopper as he carried El inside. “She needs rest.”

Joyce didn't argue, didn't say a word. She just ushered them both through into Jonathan’s room, letting Hopper lay her down on the bed in there. El had been hoping, after Hopper hand tucked her in, that her adoptive father might leave her alone. Leave her with a chance to escape unseen before dawn. But instead Hopper had settled himself into a chair beside her bed. He’d clutched her hand and he’d promised that he would be there till morning. So El had pretended to be more weakened and drained than she actually was before she just pretended to sleep. Really she was awake the whole night in a cold sweat, her heart pounding and her head full of fear...

All night she waited for Hopper to go. She _needed_ him to go.

Hop finally left the Byers house at around 7.30am the following morning. After he let go of her hand, El crept up to Jonathan's bedroom door to make sure that he was really heading out. She watched him telling Joyce that he had to go to the station to meet with Mike’s parents and discuss what he was doing to find their son. He instructed Joyce to watch over her in the meantime, to make sure that she rested and to be ready to hide her or to move her to another safe house if state troopers came knocking.

“It’s weird being on the other side of this,” a voice murmured close by.

El turned to see Will hovering by the fridge, watching his mom with a solemn gaze.

Will sighed. “You want some breakfast, El?” he asked, turning to face her.

She glanced over her shoulder, looking at the window of Jonathan’s bedroom. First light was already shining through. The clock was ticking and she was desperate to make her escape. She had to get to the lab before it was too late. Before Papa made any calls to Ray Carroll telling him that he should turn the dial on Mike. El needed to get out of here fast but she…she was starving hungry. She really needed to recharge.

“Yes,” she said tonelessly. “I need lots of breakfast.”

Will nodded, reaching into his cupboards. The Byers didn’t have any Eggos but Will poured her five bowlfuls of fruit loops and let her drink a whole carton of orange juice. After Joyce had finally finished talking with Hopper on the porch, she came to join them at the table.

“Oh sweetie,” she said, reaching across the table to clasp El's wrist. “I know what you’re feeling. I was on the phone with poor Karen most of last night and I know she’s feeling it too. We’re _all_ feeling it. Mike and Will…they’ve been friends since they were five. Mike’s like family to us. You’ve got to understand that nothing is worse than this feeling...but you’ve still got to push through it. Because Mike’s still out there. He's alive and he's strong. He’s a survivor and we’re going to find him, you hear me? Just like we found Will.”

Her son winced and lowered his eyes to his own uneaten cereal. Joyce put her hand to El’s cheek and then ran it through her hair. Her fingers came away dirty and holding a broken twig. El hadn’t washed since her fall in the forest last night.

“How…how about I run you a bath?” Joyce suggested, politely as she could.

Just the mention of a bathtub gave El a sickening flashback to the lab. But she did her best to swallow it down. She nodded that _yes_ …she'd like a bath. It was as good an excuse as any to get Mrs Byers out of the way. Joyce disappeared to run it for her while El rose to her feet, heading back into Jonathan’s room…getting ready to make her escape from the house.

A voice behind her stopped her in her tracks.

“El, I…I need to tell you something,” the voice said in a nervous whisper.

She turned to see Will behind her, his eyes brimming with tears.

“I think you’re the only one who’ll understand. I'm hoping maybe...you'll tell me I'm wrong.”

His voice was hushed so that his mom wouldn’t hear him over the gush of the taps.

“I…I felt something last night,” he said. “While you were all out searching for Mike in the woods, I felt something from the upside down. I felt him, the shadow monster...I felt him _stirring_. Like he was waking up after a long sleep. Like he was hoping to make another escape…very soon.”

Will swallowed, suddenly unable to meet El’s eyes. Like he really didn't want to accuse her.

“I...I don’t know why he’d feel that way…" he stammered, "...unless…”

Her heart clenched in her chest. Will was smart. Mike always said that Will was smart, that he saw things that others missed. With his true sight, of course Will would be the first one to figure out what she was doing. She couldn’t lie to him ( _friends don’t lie_ ) so...so she wouldn’t.

“I’m sorry, Will,” she said, tears welling in her eyes too.

As she said these words, El raised her hand.

She raised her hand and suddenly Will was thrown back across the hallway. He landed hard on the bathroom floor right beside where his mom was crouching and running her bath. And in the next second, El flung her hand sideways and slammed the door shut on both of them. Concentrating her mind, she twisted the lock on the bathroom door and the latch on the bathroom window, jamming them both, trapping Joyce and Will inside. Trapping them so that they couldn’t stop her...

“El!” Will screamed through the door. “El _please_! Don’t do this! There's got to be another way!”

There wasn't. There really wasn't. So she couldn’t linger. She couldn’t listen to Will's cries.

El rushed out the front door. She seized the handles of Will’s bike where it was leaning against the porch wall. Climbing into its seat, she got it down onto the driveway and then started peddling as hard as she could, turning onto the dirt roads that would lead her to Hawkins lab. That would take her back to the first home she’d ever had. To the home and the father that she’d sworn she’d never return to.

"Coming, Papa…” she rasped beneath her breath, just in case he was somehow watching.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had a bad day today (emo Mike voice...) so consequently this is probably a bad chapter. But whatever, I thought I'd still get it out there. Enjoy another cliffhanger and please keep commenting. Thanks to all readers of this fic, much love.


	7. Put It Down

Mike woke to find that he was moving.

No, not _him_ moving. He was in a moving car.

He tried to open his eyes only to be stung by the blaze of the early morning sun. There was white light streaming in through the windows of the car he was in. He...he was out of the bunker. He was above ground and it was daytime again. Mike wasn’t sure which day it was. The shock treatment that Brenner had inflicted on him had left him confused, disorientated and a little amnesiac. When he’d woken for the first time after it happened, Mike found he was still strapped to the gurney. He’d been slipping in and out of consciousness ever since and every time he woke, it took a moment for him to remember exactly where he was, what had happened to him, who these strange men were with him...

Brenner had disappeared sometime in the night. Mike had tried asking the fat man where he'd gone but he didn’t get an answer. Mike was just told to go back to sleep. It was order he found hard to resist. That electric shock to his brain had left him drained. As drained as he imagined El must feel after using her powers. _El_ …thought Mike, his memories flooding back now. She had been close. She’d been in the lights. She'd been talking to Brenner, but…but Mike had no idea what had happened after he blacked out. Was El safe? Where was she now?

He forced his eyes open, still squinting. He was lying slumped to one side in the backseat of a car. His hands were cuffed behind him and a seat belt was fastened round his waist. Blinking and refocusing, he saw the fat man sitting behind the wheel. Mike struggled into a sitting position and looked out the rear windows. They were driving on the dirt paths that ran through the Hawkins woods. At some point while he’d been out cold, Mike must've been taken from the bunker and smuggled out into this car...

“Where are we going?” he croaked. He cleared his throat and tried again, louder this time. “Hey…what’s going on?!”

“Settle down...” the fat man hissed over his shoulder.

Mike frowned at the man driving him. His hands were trembling on the steering wheel, his knuckles tense and white.

The man took a steadying breath. “I…I’m letting you go.”

“What?” Mike spluttered, more confused now than ever. “Just…just like that? Why?”

The man shook his head, seeming frantic.

“Because Brenner wants me to use that machine on you again, that’s why!" the man snapped at him. "And not a low dose this time. This time he wants me to scramble your brains, kid.”

Mike flinched, his heart catching in his chest.

“Right now you’re a missing child case…” the fat man continued. “And Brenner needs that case to be solved quickly, so this town isn’t crawling with state troopers. So he wants you to be found. Only when the cops find you, he doesn’t want you to be able to explain anything that’s happened to you, anything you’ve seen. He wants the police to think you got lost in the woods and met with some sort of…accident. Something that left you with head trauma.” He shrugged. “That’s just how Brenner deals with witnesses.”

“You mean like how you dealt with El’s mom?” he said. Because suddenly Mike realized. He knew who the fat man must be. “You…you’re Ray Carroll.”

“She told you about me, huh? Look…I can’t take back what I did to that poor woman, okay? But I owe that girl. She had a chance to take her revenge. She could’ve killed me. She could’ve let her punk friends shoot me in the head. But she showed me mercy. I didn’t even deserve it but…I figure letting you go is the least I can do to repay her.” Ray had tears in his voice now. He caught Mike’s eye in the mirror. “Besides, I can’t turn that dial again. Not on a kid.”

Ray brought the car to an abrupt stop, parking it in a cluster of trees. Mike looked out the windows again and saw they were now on the outskirts of the forest. There was a busy road that he could see up ahead. And beyond the road, he could see a school...

He could see Hawkins Middle school.

“It's just before classes,” Ray stammered as he pointed to the main gates. “You get over there…find a teacher. You’re in a bad way, kid. You need to get to a hospital. Tell them to call your parents. And kid, just…give me a head start, would you? Just let me get far away from this town. I’ve got to go on the run. And not just for my own sake…I’ve got kids, Mike. Two little girls. The only reason I helped Brenner this time round was because I knew he’d threaten my daughters if I tried to say no to him. I have to get back to my girls!”

Mike said nothing. After everything that Ray Carroll had done to him during the last few days and everything he’d done to El, her mom and those other lab kids in the past, he wasn’t feeling ready to just say bygones. But it seemed like Ray really was letting him go. No tricks. Ray got out of the car, opening the rear door and helping Mike to his feet. He brought Mike close to the driver’s side and then reached down to unlock his cuffs.

“What’ll Brenner do when he finds out I’m gone?” asked Mike.

“He…he shouldn’t notice for a while,” said Ray, still shaky with dread. “We’re superfluous to his needs now. He's already got what he wants.”

Ray said this last part under his breath. For a moment, Mike wasn’t even sure that he'd heard him right. But his hands were free now. So he whipped around and gripped Ray by his shirt collar, pushing him hard against the car. The man’s jaw dropped open. He clearly hadn’t been expecting Mike to have any fight in him. But fear had caused an adrenaline spike in Mike’s blood.

“He’s got what he wants?” Mike snapped. “You mean he’s got _El_?!”

Ray shook his head, not in denial, just in sheer panic. He ripped Mike’s hand away from his shirt, before shoving him to the ground.

“G-get out of here, kid,” Ray stammered, waving at the school. “Just go! You can’t fight him!”

Ray turned his back then, ready to climb into the car. And that was when Mike saw it. The budge in the waistband at the back of his trousers. The gun. Ray had a gun on him. And as if he’d been zapped with another dose of electricity, Mike jumped to his feet, snatching the gun from Ray and then pointing it right at his head.

“Hey!” Ray whimpered, raising his hands. “I was helping you, you little shit!”

“Where is she?” Mike demanded, kicking him in the shins. “ _Where_?!”

“You…you know what he’s planning, right?” Ray babbled. “You know what he wants that girl to do? That means we’ve got to get far away, kid. Far away from this town before he opens a new gate!”

“No, it means we have to stop him...” Mike waved the gun at the steering wheel. “Get back in the car. You’re going to take me to them. Now! _Drive_!”

Ray shook his head, petrified. “I...I can’t go back. He’ll kill me! Please, I’ve got little kids…”

“I said MOVE!” Mike yelled at him.

He pressed the muzzle of the gun into Ray’s cheek. Then suddenly the fat man gritted his teeth and charged at him, knocking Mike to the ground a second time. Mike’s limbs were weak as wet noodles so it wasn’t hard to shove him over. But his fear for El got him back on his feet only a matter of seconds later. He whirled around to see Ray running away from the car, running across the road, heading for the school. Mike clutched the gun in both hands and took off after him.

He found he couldn’t run as fast as he wanted. His body was starved and dehydrated, his head a dizzy throbbing mess, his eyes still struggling to focus. But he ran after Ray with all the desperate energy he had left. He ran straight out into the road, stumbling there and then collapsing to his knees. Mike heard the ugly honk of a horn and a screech of tires which only made the pain in his head worse. He staggered to his feet again, instinctively jerking his gun arm up and aiming at the driver that’d almost hit him.

It was…it was just some suburban mom, dropping her son off at school.

When the mom saw Mike leveling the gun at her, she screamed. Then she reached over to the boy in the passenger seat, one of Mike’s classmates, and pulled him down so that they were both sheltered under the dashboard. Mike felt as scared by her reaction as she had been by the sight of him waving his weapon. With a shudder, Mike turned the gun away from the mom and her kid. He swung it round and pointed it at…at the playground.

After that all Mike could hear was screaming.

He tried his best to block it out, the shrieks of kids scattering from the yard and fleeing for the safety of the school building. Mike just focused on the fat man, running through the crowd, trying to hide among the kids, trying to use them as human shields.

“Get out of the way!!” Mike barked at them all, his voice tearing.

The kids covered their heads and they cleared a path, leaving Ray exposed and in his sights. Mike clutched the gun in both hands again, trying to steady his trembling arms. He tried to yell out _STOP_! but all that came out of his mouth was a breathless sob.

Then Mike squeezed the trigger and the gun went off.

He hadn’t even tried to aim. But a spurt of blood exploded from Ray’s thigh and he went down, sprawling on the ground. Mike couldn’t believe it. He’d never fired a gun before in his life, only those laser toys that they had at the arcade and his accuracy scores had never been particularly great with them. This had to be a fluke. Because with one shot he had Ray Carroll down on the ground, clutching his bleeding leg.

And he still had bullets to spare…

“Where is she?!” Mike demanded once more.

“Where…?” wheezed Ray, clutching his leg. “Christ, where do you think?!”

Mike swallowed. _Of course._ He should’ve known right away…

The lab. Brenner would want her back at the lab.

“Get up!” Mike snarled at him, barely thinking. “Get back to the car!”

“Kid, you shot me!” Ray cried. “You _fucking_ shot me! I can’t…”

“Michael,” said another voice, somewhere to his left.

Mike didn’t take his eyes off Ray. He didn’t need to look around to see who was speaking to him. He recognized the voice immediately as belonging to Mr Clarke. His science teacher was stepping into Mike’s peripheral vision, his palms spread wide as he drew near.

“Son, whatever problem you’re having here,” Mr Clarke said as calmly as he could. “I’m sure it can be solved without a gun.”

Mike tensed, shaking his head. Mr Clarke didn’t understand. He didn’t know what these people were capable of. Mike needed this gun right now…he needed to protect himself, to save her. He needed to make Ray drive him to El so that he could stop Brenner from forcing her to open a new gate. Only…only Mike had just shot the man in the leg. He wouldn’t be able to drive now. Mike felt himself breaking out in a feverish sweat as he looked over at Mr Clarke. Could he make Mr Clarke drive him instead?

 _Jesus_. Was that his new plan? Taking his favorite teacher hostage?

“Mike…please, the police have been called. They're going to be here any second.”

Mr Clarke sank to his knees beside Ray and started slipping off his belt.

“ _Don’t!_ ” Mike screamed, not wanting Mr Clarke to get too close.

“Mike, he’s bleeding badly. I need to make a tourniquet.”

“But he…he’s…”

Mike wanted to say _‘he’s the bad man’._

But suddenly he felt aware of how this scene must look. How he was the one who'd just chased an unarmed man across a school yard and then shot him. The playground had quickly become empty and desolate besides the sound of Ray’s hitching breaths. The other kids and teachers were all hiding in classrooms, peeping out through windows…looking at Mike like he was a total psycho.

Suddenly, there was another voice calling to him across the yard.

“Mike…put the gun down. Put it down _right now_.”

Hopper. The Chief had arrived on the scene.

And hearing his voice, Mike’s mind was filled with another fuzzy memory from the night before. The memory of Brenner telling him that it was Hopper who had given up their location; who’d led Brenner and his soldiers right to them at the school. Hopper, who Mike had always trusted. Who he’d kept on trusting even after the man had lied to him more and hurt him worse than any other adult in his life. Even after that long painful year that Hopper had put him through, Mike had still never stopped trusting the man. Only now…now he knew the truth. Now he knew not only was Hopper a lying piece of shit...he was a traitor. He was a fucking traitor who’d sold them out.

Mike jerked his gun up at the Chief as he approached.

“GET AWAY!!” he yelled. “Get back or I swear I’ll…”

“Hey, hey!” Hopper raised his hands, his eyes widening. “ _Easy!_ ”

“Don’t come any closer!” Mike warned.

Hopper blinked at him in confusion. “Kid…it’s me.”

Mike just shook his head. Because the Chief wasn’t the man who he’d thought he knew. Not anymore. Hopper kept his eyes steady on Mike, but waved a hand to the two men on the ground.

“Scott…I want you to back away, alright? I got this...”

Mr Clarke nodded. He’d finished securing the belt around Ray’s leg. So he rose to his feet and hurried for the cover of the school building.

“Mike, what the hell are you…?” Hopper began.

“He’s got her! Brenner’s got her!” Mike pointed the gun at Ray again. “I need him to take me to her. Before it’s too late.”

Hopper frowned. “You’re talking about…?” He glanced around to make sure that nobody else was within earshot. “Kid...she’s _fine_. I left her at Joyce’s house not two hours ago. She’s worried sick over you, but she’s safe. That old psycho hasn't got her.”

Mike blinked in disbelief. Then he glared down at Ray.

“Liar!!” he screamed. “You lying bastard!”

Ray said nothing. He just squeezed his eyes closed and Mike realized that Ray thought he was going to shoot him. And not just in the leg this time. Mike was angry enough to go through with it. Yes, he could do it. For El and for her mom. Ray deserved it.

“Don’t, Mike!” a voice yelled across the yard. “Seriously don’t!”

He looked up then to see Dustin watching him through the chain-link fence with Lucas there at his side. Hearing Dustin’s voice, Mike felt himself flashing back to that day at the quarry. He remembered Troy pointing a knife at his friend’s face. He remembered walking up to the edge of the cliff before stepping off into thin air. Yeah, Dustin of all people knew when Mike needed to be talked down from a ledge. Dustin knew how crazy he was. He knew Mike would actually jump. He knew he might _really_ shoot.

“Listen to your friend, kid,” Hopper said urgently. “You’re no killer...”

He...he didn’t know what he was anymore. He was so fucking lost. He didn’t know if he should believe Hopper when he’d said that El was safe. But he wanted it to be true. Maybe…maybe it was the bad men who had lied to him? About what Hopper had done and about where El was. Mike didn’t know what to trust. But suddenly his arms were sagging and the gun felt too heavy to hold up…

“Kid…look at me,” said Hopper. “ _Listen._ I want you to slow your breathing. Take deep breaths, in and out. You got that?”

Mike opened his mouth and he breathed. He tasted the salt tears rolling over his lips.

“Okay now I want you to put the gun down…” Hopper pointed to Ray. “Take a few good steps away from this man…and then _put it down_.”

Mike did as the Chief told him. At this point he didn’t know what else to do. The tension was bleeding out of him and he was suddenly very scared. Scared of the gun in his hands and the puddle of blood on the ground. Scared of everyone watching him, the other kids from his school, the other cops who must have him surrounded.

“That’s far enough,” said Hopper, coming forwards to stand in the space Mike had left between himself and Ray. “Put the gun on the ground, kid.”

He held Hopper’s stare, hoping this was the right thing to do, wanting so badly to trust the Chief again. And most of all…just wanting all this to be over. And with that thought, Mike sank onto his knees and he put down the gun.

Suddenly he was aware of a rush of movement in the playground around him. Police and paramedics hurrying towards them from all sides. He rose to his feet and span around in a panic. The cops moving in had guns of their own. They were all raising them at him.

But Hopper reached Mike first, grasping him by the arm.

“I got him! I got him!” Hopper barked at his deputies. He waved them off and led Mike swiftly across the yard, heading straight for his police cruiser. “No, they won’t be necessary…” Hopper added as one of the other cops attempted to give him a set of handcuffs.

Mike swallowed. “Am I under arrest?” he asked in a daze.

“Kid, you just shot a man in a school yard. So _yeah_ , I’m afraid so.”

Mike felt his head growing foggy again. Dustin and Lucas came running up as Hopper got him to the car. They both had their arms raised, wanting to hug him, but Hopper held them back, shaking his head. He put Mike in the backseat and quickly got behind the wheel, pulling out of the school yard before anyone could stop them.

“ _Jesus_ , kid,” Hopper muttered as they drove. “It’s great to see you’re safe and all, but did you really have to make that kind of entrance? I mean, _Christ_!”

Mike wiped his eyes. “Where…where are we going?” he asked.

“County Sheriff’s department,” said Hopper. “Your family are there right now. I was talking with them just before I got the call about you showing up at the school, firing off shots…”

Mike felt a hole opening up inside him as he imagined trying to explain what had just happened to his parents. He realized that he couldn’t even say that the man who he’d shot was the man who’d drugged them and kidnapped him from their house. At least, he couldn’t tell them the whole story of what had happened without including El. And he still couldn’t say a thing to them about El.

“We better make this quick...” said Hopper, fumbling for his radio. “We don’t have long. State troopers are going to be descending on my Sheriff’s house any moment and they’re probably going to take you out of my hands. They could take you anywhere from juvenile hall to the nearest nuthouse. So we’ve got to call her now. She needs to hear you’re okay…”

More tears slipped down Mike’s cheeks as he realized that if he’d just run when he’d had the chance…if he’d let Ray drive off and gone to the school for help…if he hadn't freaked out and lost his temper, then...then he could’ve been going to see El right now. He could’ve been minutes away from holding her.

“Joyce, are you there?” Hopper said into the radio. “Do you copy?”

 _“Hop!”_ Mrs Byers practically shrieked on the other end. _“Hop, where have you been? I’ve been call…”_

“Yeah, long story,” he interrupted. “Listen I need you to…”

 _“She’s gone, Hop!”_ Joyce yelled over him. _“El is gone! We couldn’t stop her. She shut us in the bathroom. We had to break the glass to get out…”_

Hopper brought the police cruiser to a sudden halt by the roadside. As Mike panted for breath, he could hear the sirens of state troopers coming up the road behind them. They’d be pulling up beside them in less than a minute. That was all the time that Mike and Hopper had to stare at each other, both of them turning rapidly pale, both sick with the realization...

_“Hopper, are you still there? Do you copy? Hop I…I’m so sorry.”_

It was true. El was gone. Ray hadn’t been lying after all…

And wherever she was…she’d gone to him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So as careful readers will have realized, this is the point where my story loops back to the opening chapter with Mike at the mental hospital. So no more foreshadowing from now on. Anything can happen going forwards. This fic can still get darker...and it will. Sorry folks, but there's plenty of Mike/Eleven fluff to be read on Ao3. This is the fic where all the bad things happen and the kids go through hell. Don't say I didn't warn ya...


	8. Broken Toys

She left Will’s bike by the trees and walked up to the fence.

El slipped her fingers through its metal chain links and she stared up at the huge forbidding fortress of a lab. The place that had been her home (no, her _prison_ ) for the first twelve years of her life. She’d not been back here since that night in November. The night she had closed the gate, trapping the shadow monster in a prison of its own and killing its army of demodog slaves. She’d saved her friends that night, saved the whole town. When she’d got back to the cabin that night, Dustin had called her a hero. A superhero like the Green Lantern and the X-men from his comic-books. That night she’d done good. She’d done _so good_.

Now here she was. Back at the lab making deals with the bad man.

She was going to put them all in danger again.

El stepped back and stared at the fence. Somewhere in its wide perimeter, Ray must have cut a hole, allowing him to sneak onto the grounds and search the derelict building. She could have walked around and found that hole but she decided it would be easy enough to make one of her own. She raised her hand and her anger shot out through her fingertips. The metal of the fence blackened and twisted like it was being burnt with a blow torch. She made a hole roughly her own height, the chain links curling away to form a slim opening.

She might as well practice making gates. She stepped through, heading for the lab’s main doors.

El already knew where she would find Papa. She traced the familiar stairs and corridors all the way up to the lab’s highest floors until she found herself back in that long hallway. The hall leading back to her old bedroom (no, her _cell,_ her old cell). El was trembling with every step she took towards its door. Swallowing, she peered inside. It…it was exactly like she remembered it. The same bare white tiles and dull featureless furniture. One of her old pencil drawings was still tacked onto the wall above the bed.

And on the bed sat Papa. He raised his head, his breath catching as he saw her. 

“I’ve been waiting most of the night,” he told her, his smile so tender. “Waiting for my little girl to come home.”

She couldn’t hold his stare. Her eyes dropped to his lap. He was holding something there. Her cuddly lion that she’d loved so much; that she had been so sad to leave behind. Her lion was one of the few toys that she’d had at the lab that had been allowed to keep its head.

“I saved him for you,” said Papa, stroking her lion like he'd stroked Mike’s brow, just to taunt her. “Your last drawing too.”

He nodded to the picture on the wall, the drawing of the cat he'd wanted her to kill. Then refocused his attention on El.

“Sit by me, child,” Papa said, patting the mattress beside him.

El wanted to run screaming back down the hall. She wanted to keep running until she was out of the main doors and the lab was far behind her. But she couldn’t say no. She couldn’t deny him anything. He had Mike. Papa still had Mike and he could give Ray the order to turn the dial whenever he wanted. So she stepped into the room and she sat.

“Look at you.” His thin fingers reached into her hair. “You’ve grown so much since I saw you last. And your hair. It’s so curly and dark now. Not blonde like when you were small.”

El went very still at his touch, but she didn’t pull away. She couldn't show any resistance. 

“What do you want?” she asked numbly. “Just...just say what I have to do.”

He cupped his hand around her chin, forcing her to look at him.

“Nothing for now,” he said. “You look so tired. Poor thing. Yesterday must have been very upsetting for you. The first thing I want you to do is rest. Just lay down on your old bed and recover your strength. We won’t try anything till this evening. There’s preparations I have to make before then.”

“What kind of… _preparations_?” she asked, unfamiliar with the word but already not liking it.

“I’m going fill up your bath. Ray found all our old equipment in storage. He’s set it all up for us, brought in all the salt that we’ll need and a generator system to power it. It will work just like before. Only it’s going to take me a little longer to make everything ready. I don’t have a team of scientists at my disposal anymore. It’s just me and you now Eleven. And I’m not as young as I used to be.” He sighed. “So you’ll have plenty of time to rest before we begin.”

“In the bath…what will I be looking for?”

“You already know,” he said softly, his fingers falling to her shoulder and kneading her skin. “You’ll be looking for that other world. That other Hawkins and the creatures that it breeds. You’re going to find a way to break through to that world again.”

She knew, of course, but it still terrified her to hear him say it.

“Why would you want to let all that badness out again?” she asked trembling.

“Two reasons. The first is that I’m doing my job. Even now I’m a fugitive and my lab has been shut down, I am still dedicated to my work. And my work here in Hawkins has always been building weapons. You may see weapons as a bad thing, child. But it’s dangerous times we live in. If we don’t make weapons ourselves then our enemies will build them and use them to hold our whole country to ransom. What better weapon to fight the Russians than that monster and its nether world? If I can make contact with that monster, if I can communicate with it – and I believe that I can – then I have a chance of harnessing its power. A power greater than any secret weapon the Soviets will be building.”

El shuddered, imagining what Papa would do with that dark world under his control.

“What…what’s the other reason?” she asked.

“I’m a scientist, Eleven. That's more than a job to me, it's my calling. And scientists are driven by curiosity. In the work I did with you and the other test subjects I was advancing the evolutionary process and expanding human potential. You took that potential further than all the rest. Breaking boundaries into new dimensions. There’s never been greater scientific discoveries in the history of mankind than in the work you and I have done in this lab. That dark world and its monsters are more than just weapons. When you opened that gate, you opened up a whole new way of looking at the universe. This could be the key to our existence. It could reveal the meaning of life itself. I can’t turn my back on that quest for knowledge. I can’t keep that gate closed. I have to open it again. Even if kills me, it would be an experiment worth dying for.”

She held his stare. “What if other people die? What if those monsters kill everyone in this town?”

He shrugged. “Then their deaths would be a worthy sacrifice too.”

El shook her head fiercely. “No! No, it wouldn’t. And people _will_ die if I let the monsters out again. Good people! Just like last time.” She rose to her feet, standing in front of him again, still trying to bargain. “If…if I do this. If I get in the bathtub again and help you with your experiments, then…then you have to at least let me warn them.”

He frowned. “Warn who?”

“My friends,” she said. And with that one word her negotiating power was slipping. Tears filled her eyes and she was desperate. “You…you need to let me call Hopper. Let me tell him what we’re doing. So he can protect the town. He…he could find a way. He could make all the people get far away from here. He could keep everyone safe without giving up any of our secrets. He’s good at doing that.”

Papa was just staring at her, his eyes narrowing.

“You really trust the Sheriff, don’t you?”

“Yes, I trust him.” She paused, gathering her courage before she said it. “He...he’s my Papa now. He kept me safe for over a year and he never made me use my powers. He wanted me to be a normal girl, wanted me to have a normal life. He gave me a new birthday on a piece of paper. He’s given me back my name. The name that you took from me. _Jane_.”

He kept his face stern and emotionless as she said all this. Then without answering he stooped, reaching for a black bag beside his feet. He unzipped it and took something out. It was a simple black cassette player with a small tape inside.

“I was hoping I wouldn’t have to show you this,” he said heavily. “But you have a right to know the truth.” He held up the tape player. “This was recorded in one of our cells on the night Sheriff Hopper and Mrs Byers came to our lab to recover young Will. When I spoke with the Chief that evening it turned out that he was willing to make deals with me too.”

He held the cassette player out to her, wanting her to press the button. When El didn’t move, he pressed it for her.

Hopper’s voice crackled from its speaker, echoing off the cell walls.

 _“You gotta give me your word…”_ said Hopper’s voice on the tape. “ _Nobody is ever going to find out about this. And those other three kids, those boys, you’re going to leave them alone. Then I’ll tell you…I’ll tell you where your little science experiment is...”_

Hearing these words, El felt like she’d been punched in the stomach. She lowered herself onto the mattress again, fearing she might throw up. Hopper was using his mean voice on the tape. It was a voice she heard out of him all the time, but she'd come to feel that he only talked mean because he got so worried. Because he got scared that he couldn't protect her. Scared that he'd lose her. If nothing else, she'd always believed he was frightened to lose her. But now she knew...Hopper would have let her be taken back to the lab. 

Maybe when Hopper spoke mean...it really was because he was mad at her. At the danger she'd put them in.

 _“The school…”_ Hopper’s voice continued on the tape, no denying it was his voice. _“You'll find the kids hiding at Hawkins Middle school. They’re in the gym. With enough soldiers I’m guessing you can get them surrounded…take them by surprise. Just don't you assholes dare hur-”_

Papa cut the tape off then, slipping its player back inside his bag.

“You heard what he said, Eleven. You heard how he really thinks of you. _A little science experiment._ Maybe you don’t trust me, but you can’t trust him either. You can’t want a man who betrayed you to be your new father. I know I’ve done things to hurt you too. But like it or not...I’m the closest thing you’ve ever had to family. I’m the first person who held you when you came into this world. I’m the one who raised you, helped you to nurture your powers. Besides...what other family do you have left now? Not your mother sadly. Not that murderer in the city you call a sister. Have you tried to visit your sister lately, Eleven? Are you aware that I paid our Eight a visit before coming back to town?”

Her head snapped up. She was still reeling from the shock of hearing the tape.

Now this. Papa had seen Kali. He had found her and he...  

“What…what did you…?” She couldn’t even finish the question.

“How do you think Ray and I found out you were in Hawkins?” Papa continued. “After your sister's botched assassination attempt, Ray came to me. He told me that he’d seen you two together. So we set a little trap of our own. We knew that if Ray stayed in Chicago then our Eight would not be able to resist taking another chance to kill him. Foolish of her, but that one was always ruled by her temper. Sure enough, she and her gang tracked Ray down again and they came for him. And I was there ready for them when they came. Ready with a sleeping gas that rendered them all unconscious less than a minute after they broke into his apartment. Only their driver got away.”

“No…” El shook her head, tears already falling. “ _Please no_ …”

“Don’t worry. It wasn’t your so-called sister who gave up your location. I guess she’s more loyal to you than the Sheriff. Her friends however...they weren’t as strong as her. Just a little electricity from my machine and I was able to break them.”

El squeezed her eyes closed. She hadn’t thought about her sister and her gang in a long time. But they still meant a lot to her. They'd given her a taste of freedom that she had never experienced before. Nobody had ever understood her better than Kali.

“Where…where are they?" she asked, her heart aching. "Where is my sister now?”

“Why don’t you look for yourself?” said Papa.

El was already looking. She was searching through the black void. She didn’t need a photo to find Kali. Not when she was sitting in her old cell in the lab. The lab where they had both been locked away through their childhoods. Her first memories of Kali were right here. She could use them to find her now. Even if she was scared of what she’d…

She found her sister lying on a bed. A bed that looked a lot like the one in the warehouse where she’d slept in late on that night she'd stayed in Chicago. Only Kali wasn’t sleeping on the bed. She was fully clothed, laying outside the covers, staring blankly up at the ceiling. In her dream circle, El was just approaching the bed when another person entered her vision. _Mick._ It was Mick. Their driver, their eyes, the one who’d got away. Mick sat down on the bed beside Kali and her sister didn’t move, didn’t react to her presence.

Mick was holding a bowl in her hands. A bowl of soup. She brought a spoonful of it to her lips, but instead of eating, she blew on it, cooling it down. Once the soup was no longer steaming, she lifted Kali into a sitting position and held the spoon to her lips instead. Her sister’s eyes remained blank, empty as her Mama’s had been, as her friend helped her to eat…

El flinched out of her vision, breathless and choking on sobs.

“You…you turned the dial on her,” she rasped out.

“It was self-defense, Eleven. She was trying to kill Ray. She would have killed me too, given the chance. In a way I was merciful. I let her live. I may still be able to access her powers. She could still be useful to our work. And besides, I consider her to be family too." He paused then added. "I was sure to kill the rest of her degenerate little gang though.”

Hearing what he'd done to Kali and what had happened to Axel, Dottie and Funshine, El couldn’t contain her rage any longer. The scream tore out of her, hitting Papa like a nuclear wind, slamming him hard against the wall. The side of his face smashed against the tiles giving him a nosebleed of his own. He looked back at her, his stare darkening. 

She…she had never hurt him before. She’d never dared to.

Suddenly she remembered Mike. Papa still had _Mike_.

“I…I’m sorry,” she found herself saying, the words sickening her.

He still had Mike. And Mike was all that she had left now.

“Don’t be,” said Papa, wiping the blood from his lips. “You’ll need that anger for later. You’ll need it to open the gate.”

“Please no...” she whimpered. She didn’t know what else to say. “Papa _please_ …”

He turned away from her as she begged, looking down at his feet instead. Her cuddly lion had fallen to the floor when she’d thrown him against the wall. He picked it up now and placed it in her arms. El sobbed and hugged her old toy tight to her chest, a helpless child again.

“You have until evening to make your final decision,” he told her, rising to his feet. “But know that if you refuse to go ahead with the experiment then Ray is under my orders to give the same dose of ECT to Mike as he gave to your mother…and that I gave to your sister.”

Papa headed for the door while El buckled and curled herself into a ball on the mattress.

“I know you’ll make the right choice, child,” Papa said, still smiling.

Then he closed her cell door, locking her inside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did warn you this could get darker, right? I can't believe I've only got four more chapters to go. There's a resolution I promise. Also, FYI. I've retroactively given my chapters titles. Since this fic is starting to feel like a novel.


	9. Crimes of Passion

It had taken Dr Owens only twenty minutes to declare Mike sane, but it was taking forever for the man to fill out his release forms. Mike’s palms were sweating and one of his legs was jiggling out of control as he stared out of the office window. In the distance Mike could see Hopper’s police cruiser in the Pennhurst parking lot and Hopper himself pacing and smoking close by, seeming just as agitated and impatient.

“What the _fuck_ is taking so long?” Mike muttered, shaking his head.

Owens glanced up from the endless forms, raising an eyebrow.

“Nice mouth. I’m sure it’ll serve you well in juvenile hall....” He looked down at the papers again. “A few more minutes, kid. We’re all prisoners of bureaucracy here, I’m afraid.”

Mike didn’t answer back. He was tense, irritated and deeply afraid for El but he finally felt like his temper was under control. When Mike had arrived at Pennhurst that morning, he had been frantic. He’d been screaming his head off and struggling against the orderlies who’d practically had to drag him into the padded cell where he had spent most of the afternoon. The doctors had checked him over, but had found no injuries on him besides the bruises on his wrists where Mike had been yanking at his handcuffs. The other things Brenner had done to him – the shock treatment, the stomach pump – had left no discernible marks.

Still, Mike had been pale, dizzy and dehydrated on arrival. The doctors had made him drink water, given him vitamin boosters and mood stabilizers, before leaving him in the soft cell to calm down. And Mike was feeling calmer now, under the circumstances. Mike wondered if there really was something wrong with him. If he had some sort of mental disorder that was characterized by anger issues, destructive behavior and poor impulse control. Maybe he needed to be on this lithium stuff all the time.

“Okay,” Dr Owens said at last, checking his wrist watch and then bundling all the papers into a folder which he tucked under his arm. “Time to make a break for it.”

Mike frowned as Owens ushered him to his feet. Together they walked through a series of corridors and a patient security checkpoint before reaching the main reception. At the front desk, Owens dropped his folder and tape recorder in front of the frazzled-looking receptionist.

“There we go…” Owens said cheerfully. “No diagnosis of mental illness in this case. The boy here is just a regular delinquent. I’ve just received a fax through from state police. They want him moving to the Hawkins county jail overnight so his parents can drop off clothes, personal items and so on. The local police are waiting outside to escort him there now. The troopers will be moving him to the nearest youth detention facility in the morning.”

The phone started ringing before Owens had finished talking. The weary receptionist put up her hand, telling them to _‘hang on just a moment’_ and picked up the receiver. While she was distracted with her call, Owens caught hold of Mike’s arm and tugged him towards the exit.

“Come on. Keep moving,” he whispered. “Just keep moving…”

“What…are you not supposed to be letting me out?” Mike asked.

“Let’s just say I’m not following official procedure,” Owens replied. “That fax from state police in your files? I wrote it myself, under another false name. With any luck they won’t realize the forgery till tomorrow. It’s after 6pm now and the night staff here are pretty lax.”

Mike winced. “But…will you get in trouble? When they find out?”

“You’re worried about _me_ getting in trouble? Ain’t that sweet...” Owens chuckled, shaking his head. “The forged fax will just be traced back to _‘Dr Cohen’_. Happily, he doesn’t exist either. It just means I won’t be showing my face round here again. I’ll have to go back to my usual laying low.”

“What were you doing working here anyway?” asked Mike.

“I don’t work here. Not really. I just drop in from time to time in a freelance capacity. I have my contacts at Pennhurst though. A few former employees from Hawkins lab, the ones who lived long enough to be fired, have taken jobs here since. Swapping one mad house for another, right? Anyway…they’re the ones who got me inside and put me in charge of your evaluation. Needless to say it’s likely to be a onetime favor. I'm putting their jobs at risk too.”

“So the state troopers…” Mike went on. “They don’t know about you and Hopper taking me back to Hawkins?”

Owens shrugged. “They may not care where you’ve been overnight. So long as you’re in custody and they can come collect you in the morning.”

Mike flinched a little at that. So this was still far from being over then. He might have escaped the loony bin but he was still facing the juvenile justice system.

“What if I’m not at the Sheriff house in the morning?” he asked.

“First things first, kid,” said Owens. “If the worst happens and your little friend Eleven opens that gate again, there’s a chance that none of us will be here come the morning.”

Mike nodded and then fell silent. This mention of El and the threat of her opening new inter-dimensional gates had snapped him back into focus. They reached the parking lot where Hopper was waiting in his police cruiser, revving the engine and waving frantically to the backseat.

“Come on, hurry it up!” he barked out the window.

“Alright!” Owens yelled back. “Some of us have a permanent limp…”

They climbed into the car and Hopper took off driving at a speed. Mike had been in a wreck when the troopers had brought him to Pennhurst that morning, but he’d been vaguely aware that it’d been a long trip. Over an hour at least on the road.

“El,” Mike asked, soon as he was in the car. “Have you…?”

“We still don’t know where she is…” Hopper said grimly. “We’re just assuming that she went to meet Brenner somewhere in secret. The only good news we have at the moment is that your friends have been watching their compasses all day and so far they haven’t found any disturbances in the electromagnetic field. Will’s getting scared though. He keeps saying something about his _‘true sight’_ , saying that we’re running out of time. I don’t know what the hell he means but I don’t take warnings from that kid lightly...” He glanced over his shoulder at Mike. “So what can you tell us? Any ideas where she might’ve gone?”

Mike swallowed. “I don’t know for sure. Ray wouldn’t tell me. But from the way that he was talking I…I think she’s gone to meet Brenner at the lab.”

Hopper hissed through his teeth, shaking his head, his knuckles clenching around the steering wheel.

“I told you, Chief,” said Owens. He glanced at Mike. “He didn’t want to believe it. But it makes sense. The girl will be at her most vulnerable at that lab. It’s the setting of all her childhood trauma. Psychologically speaking it’s the place where Brenner has the most power over her.”

“I get the picture, Doc!” Hopper snapped. “It’s also the place where the universe was torn open the last time. There’s no worse place she could be…”

“If you thought she might be at the lab, you should’ve gone there already,” said Mike, still calm but with mounting hostility. “Haven’t you even tried to rescue her yet? What the hell have you been doing all day?”

“What have I been doing?!” Hopper spluttered. “Oh now let me see...I’m the County Sheriff and some kid was shooting off a hand gun at the local Middle School this morning. That’s not exactly a slow work day for me. I’ve been hard pressed to get away long enough to come here to collect you. You’re welcome by the way…”

Mike narrowed his eyes, not about to thank him or apologize, even though he was quietly hating himself for making this situation ten times more complicated with his actions at the school. Mike knew he had to work with Hopper for now. But what Brenner had told him was still nagging at his thoughts, like a dull throb at the back of his mind. He felt like at any moment a confrontation would come erupting out of him. But they had bigger things to worry about for now. Like saving El. And maybe saving the world too.

“You could’ve sent the party instead,” Mike griped.

“No, not this time,” said Hopper. “That gate could reopen any moment. They’d only be putting themselves in danger. Besides, they’re not the ones who can stop El from doing what Brenner wants her to do. Only you can do that. She needs to see that Brenner isn’t holding you hostage anymore. When she sees you, he’ll have no power over her.”

“I guess…” said Mike, but he was thinking about what Owens had said. About how being at that place with Brenner would bring back all El’s worst trauma. Mike still didn’t know much about El’s life in the lab. She didn’t like talking about it and he didn’t like to ask if she wasn’t ready to tell him. Mike and Dustin had spent hours in Hawkins library, doing what research they could on the history of the Department of Energy and their top secret experiments. It still felt like they’d barely scratched the surface. All Mike knew was that he’d never seen El more scared than she had been on that night when Brenner came for them at the school. And now Mike knew exactly who had sent Brenner after her...

“Hey kid,” said Hopper. “Don’t check out on me, alright? I need you to focus. Why don’t you start by telling me exactly what's happened to you over the last few days.”

Mike really didn’t want to talk about that either, but it was a long drive back to Hawkins. So he went slow, telling the story almost mechanically, step by step from the moment Hopper had dropped him off on Wednesday night to the moment he'd ran into the schoolyard waving a gun that morning. Neither Hopper nor Owens interrupted his tale. They both just stared out at the road ahead. Occasionally one of them would mutter the word _‘Jesus’_. When Mike had finished, Owens let out a long slow whistle.

"Woah, kid," said the doctor. "After hearing all that...I'd say your outburst at the school was actually pretty restrained. I mean, if I'd been your age, with the hormones you're dealing with...I don't think I'd have stopped at shooting that guy in the leg." 

"Um...thanks, I guess," Mike answered awkwardly.

Hopper said nothing. Mike got the feeling the Sheriff was still secretly blaming him. 

The light was fading by the time that they drove back into Hawkins. Hopper took his car off the main road. He had already told them that they wouldn’t approach the lab through its front gates. They would take the dirt paths through the woods and look for an opening in the fence. Hopper parked in a cluster of trees and he and Mike climbed out of the cruiser.

It was Mike who was the first to spot the bike.

“Hey look! Over by that tree. That’s Will’s bike...”

Hopper nodded. “El took it. This morning, when she ran away from the Byers house.” He turned back to Owens who had shifted over into the driver’s seat. “Keep the engine warm, Doc. Here’s hoping that we’ll be back soon. Be ready to make a quick getaway. And if any monsters come out of the lab before us...”

"I'll still be waiting for you, Chief. I survived those bastards once. I can do it again."

Hopper nodded to the doctor. "Okay then. Let's go, kid..."

They started their walk from the treeline up to the fence. Looking up at the lab looming in front of them, there didn't look to be lights on in any part of the building. To a passing observer, the lab would still appear to be an abandoned derelict. And if there was no power on in the building then hopefully they wouldn't have to worry about Brenner seeing them coming on security cameras.  

After they'd got just a few yards away from the car, a thought struck Mike.

“Hey wait...” he said. “Don’t I need a weapon or something?”

The Chief had his gun holstered at his hip like always, but he probably had a spare in the cruiser. Mike needed to have something.

Hopper just shook his head. “If you think I’m giving you a gun after your antics this morning then you’ve got another thing coming.” He held up a hand to silence Mike as he tried to protest. “No _listen_ , kid. What you need to do is stay behind me at all times. Keep close and I’ll protect you.”

Mike crinkled up his nose. “Oh yeah...how are you going to protect me, fight Brenner and rescue El all at the same time?”

The Chief treated him to another sharp glance. “Right now, my plan is just to get us into that lab and then for us to find El. Once she sees you’re free from Brenner’s bunker, I’m guessing that she won’t need any rescuing. I’m guessing she’ll do all the fighting for us. Whether we like it or not…”

“You don’t know that!” Mike objected. “She’s scared of him. He’s been screwing with her head for almost her entire life. She…she still calls him Papa. What if she can’t fight him?”

Hopper’s expression was hard as steel. “Then I’ll deal with him myself.”

“You mean you’ll kill him?” asked Mike.

“I’m a cop, kid. That generally means I don’t kill people in cold blood, as much as I might want to in this case. But if Brenner won’t come quietly then…”

“No, we can’t just arrest him,” Mike protested. “We have to kill him. He has to be stopped. I told you what he’s planning. He wants to join forces with the Mind Flayer. Can you even imagine how powerful Brenner would be if he becomes allies with the shadow monster? That would be like Saruman joining the Dark Lord Sauron and all his armies of Mordor.”

“God, enough with the Hobbit nonsense!” Hopper muttered, pinching his temples. “Brenner is not joining forces with that shadow thing. That’s not even possible. The monsters from that place are mindless killing machines. They’ll eat him the same as anyone else...”

“That’s not true. The Demogorgon left him alive last time. Those monsters aren’t mindless either. Dustin found one of those Demodogs in his trash when it was still a baby. He didn’t know what it was. He thought he’d discovered a new species so he raised it like his pet. And when this creature had us all cornered in the tunnels, Dustin used his creepy little bond with it to convince it to let us go. So if Dustin could tame one of those monsters and make friends with it, who says that Brenner can’t do the same with the…”

Hopper held up a hand to silence Mike’s babbling. He had noticed something up ahead. Mike followed his eyes and he saw it too. There was a hole in the fence. A hole where the chain links had been ripped and then pulled apart like jagged metal curtain to make an opening.

An opening that was exactly the same height as El.

“This is it,” said Hopper. “She’s already in there...”

Mike nodded, already rushing forward. He only had to duck a little and he easily slipped through the slim hole in the fence. Hopper attempted to follow him and had far more difficulty. Even after crouching down low and hunching his back, his broad bearish frame was too wide for the narrow tear. He managed to step one leg through and then his jacket got caught on the broken chain links, their metal catching his sleeves like fishhooks.

 _“Christ!”_ Hopper cursed, struggling but stuck. “Help me out here, would you?”

Mike walked back to the fence, intending to loosen Hopper’s clothes from the metal snare and tug him through the hole. Then he lowered his eyes and noticed that the leg that Hopper had managed to squeeze through the gap was the one with the gun holster attached to its hip. Hopper’s arms were currently stuck on the other side of the fence. Mike could reach down, take the weapon and Hopper wouldn’t be able to stop him. He could do it in seconds.

He acted on impulse. He reached out and he took the gun.

“Hey, hey, _hey_! What the hell!” Hopper yelled at him.

“I’ll do it,” Mike said evenly. “Just let me do it.”

The Chief stared at him in shock. “Let you do what?”

“Let me kill Brenner. Like you said…you’re a cop. I get it, you could lose your job. But I’ve already shot a man today with about a hundred witnesses watching. Owens says I’ll be going to juvie for that so…” Mike smiled grimly. “So my life’s already screwed up. At least I can do something good before they lock me up. I can make sure that bastard never hurts her again.”

Hopper shook his head. “Mike…don’t do this. You didn't kill Ray Carroll. You’re not a killer.”

“We killed plenty of monsters the last time the gate was open,” he pointed out. “And Brenner’s a worse monster than any of them. After everything he's done to her and to others, he deserves it. But it's not just that...I want to do it for her sake. I owe it to her. El has already killed to protect me. She killed about six of Brenner's men when they came for us at the school…” He shuddered at the memory. Then he gritted his teeth, his eyes filling with tears. “When _you_ sent them to the school...”

Hopper stared at Mike, his face paling and his jaw going slack. There was no confusion in his eyes, only a sickly realization. Yes, Hopper was realizing now what Brenner must have told Mike…

...and he wasn’t denying it. The Chief wasn't _fucking_ denying it.

“It’s true, isn’t it.” Mike swallowed, clutching the gun tighter. “It was you that gave up our location. You...you betrayed us. You sold her out.”

“Kid, just let me explain." He continued to yank at the chain links caught on his clothes. "Just calm down, alright?”

“I am calm,” said Mike. _I just can’t trust you anymore_ , he thought, his heart clenching. "I'm calm and I can do this without you.”

Mike clicked the safety off the gun. Then he turned his back on Hopper and marched towards the lab doors.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another cliffhanger! Bet you weren't expecting that, right? I will tease that El and Mike may actually be in the same room together in the next chapter. Imagine that? Thanks to all who are still reading and especially to those checking in with comments.


	10. Ten Seconds

El sat on the rim of the bathtub, her legs dangling into the saltwater.

“What…what if I can’t do it, Papa?” she asked in a small voice.

Now that she was here...now that she was wearing her ill-fitting old bathing suit and looking down into the old isolation tank, there was only one thing that scared El more than opening the gate again. And that was _failing_ to open the gate again and how Papa would punish her for it. She hadn’t been able to open a new portal when she’d tried to at the cabin yesterday. And before that she hadn’t used her powers for months. She didn't have the control over them that she used to.

“You must believe in your capabilities, Eleven,” said Papa, crouching down by her side. “Just think of all the incredible things you’ve already done. Like that time you threw one of my vans into the air, remember that?" He smiled, like he was reliving a fond memory. "One of your friends from the city told me that you were able to drag a train carriage towards you too. Remarkable...”

Papa beamed with pride while El looked back at him thinking of all her friends who this man had killed or who he had hurt so badly that they’d never get better. She thought of Mike still trapped in that bunker under the threat of Papa’s machine. She thought about snapping Papa’s neck. It would be so easy. It _should_ be easy and yet somehow she knew that she could never do it. Papa had always seemed so invincible to her. So cold, hard and unkillable.

“Tell me, child,” he said, pressing a hand to her shoulder. “What is the most exceptional thing you’ve done since escaping this lab?”

El frowned, not knowing the word. “Exceptional?”

“The most special thing that you’ve done,” he clarified.

She nodded, struggling not to cry. “I...I went to the Snow ball…” she told him, the words spilling out of her. “That's what they call the school dance. Mike asked me to go with him. I didn’t use my powers at all, but…but that was the most special thing. I wore a pretty dress that Mrs Byers picked out for me. Nancy gave me some of her make up. Mike held my hand and we danced to the music and we had punch. It was beautiful. It’s the best thing I’ve ever done.”

Papa frowned. “Are you in love with this boy, Eleven?”

He asked her this so clinically, like it was a question on one of his checklists to ask as part of his experiments. Mike and El still hadn’t said the word _‘love’_ to each other yet. But that was only because they were both too young and too shy to say it. El knew that they both felt it anyway.

She wouldn’t say it aloud to Papa either. _'Love'_ wasn’t a word for him.

When she didn’t answer, Papa gave her shoulder a squeeze. “I tell you what...if this experiment is a success then I’m going to be very busy during the next few days. I’ll have to summon my former colleagues here to help with the workload. The authorities won’t be able to stop us by that point, of course. And once you have done your part, Eleven, I will want you to be someplace safe. So I’ll have you escorted to my secret bunker in the woods. I’ve had that bunker for many years, you know. Due to the nature of my work, I’ve always taken the threat of nuclear war very seriously. You’ll be safe in my bunker, safe from all manner of dangers…you and Mike together. Whatever happens after you open up that gate…I promise that I will keep both of you safe.”

“Promise?” she said, repeating him, the word bitter in her mouth.

“Yes, I promise.” His hand left her shoulder then, sliding down her arm before clasping her wrist. “But you have to do this first. You must not fail me.”

With a firm grip, Papa pulled her to her feet and placed her hand on a bar of the metal perch that would lower her into the tank. El reached for the other bar herself and then stepped into place. She closed her eyes and soon felt the diver’s helmet weighing on her shoulders. Then she was being lowered into the saltwater. Once she was fully submerged she opened her eyes again and stared through the viewing window out over the empty lab room. The chamber was lit only by electric lanterns while a noisy generator powered the equipment. At the far side of the shadowy space, there were a set of double doors. The last doors that El could have escaped through. But it was too late now. She’d let herself be trapped and put in this tank.

The blinds slid closed and she was left in darkness.

El closed her eyes and began to search. She knew she was supposed to hunt for monsters. She knew she had to break through into their world like she’d done the last time. But instead, when El shut her eyes, her thoughts went to Mike. She hadn’t searched for Mike since last night. She had been scared of what condition she’d find him in, scared that she’d find out it was too late. She feared that Papa’s machine might have already done permanent damage to Mike, that she could no longer save him.

She...she had to know for sure. If she was really going to do this for Mike then she needed to see him. She really wished she had a chance to talk to him, even though she knew what he would say. She knew Mike would tell her not to open the gate, no matter what. He would be the brave one and he would tell her he’d rather sacrifice himself than risk any harm to his friends. Mike would hate her for doing this. But she couldn’t help herself. She couldn’t. She…she loved him…

With that thought, El found him. She found Mike in the void.

And Mike he…he wasn’t strapped down to a gurney anymore. He was on his feet, he was running. He was _loose_. Mike was moving so fast that she had to run too to keep up with him. He seemed to be rushing around, opening doors, searching frantically. He was holding a gun in one hand. He eyes were frowning and fierce, like that time he’d pushed the mouth-breather boy over after the school assembly. He was furious. El tried calling his name, but Mike didn’t hear her. He was too focused on whatever he was trying to find. Mike ran forward for another stretch, then lifted his arms and pushed through some sort of barrier into a new space. As Mike entered this new space, his head jerked up and his eyes went wide. He raised his gun, clasping it in both hands, pointing it at something high up.

 _“Let her go!”_ the Mike in her vision yelled. _“Let out of there, you bastard!”_

El gasped, pulling out of her dream circle. Mike was here. He was here in the room with them and he was pointing a gun up to Papa on the balcony. Mike was here in the lab. He had come for her.

A scream tore out of her. A scream that was like a bomb going off in the water.

…a scream so powerful that it cracked the shell of her bathtub.

El opened her eyes in time to see the blinding window falling away in broken pieces. Her stomach dropped as the water quickly emptied from the tank, crashing out over the floor in a sudden wave. El landed hard on the floor of her bathtub. She lay winded in the shallow brine and after a desperate struggle, she pried off her helmet. She crawled out of the base of the isolation tank and then she lay panting in the puddles and broken glass that now covered the lab floor. She lifted her head.

Mike lay drenched and wheezing on the floor just a few feet away from her. The water from the tank had knocked him off his feet. But he still had hold of the gun. Mike tried to stand, but he kept on slipping over on the wet floor. So he stayed on his knees, still pointing his gun up at the balcony, the weapon trembling in his hands.

El turned to see Papa coming down the metal staircase. He held something in his hand too. Only it wasn’t a gun. It was one of those long silver electric rods that they always used to use in the lab. The ones that gave you shocks. She remembered them...

Mike tried his best to aim. Then with a cry, he fired the gun. His bullet missed Papa’s head by about a foot, bouncing off the lab wall. Before Mike could take another shot, Papa reached the bottom step and pointed the silver rod down into the puddles on the lab floor.

El screamed as an electric current whipped through her entire body. She was already drained from breaking the tank and the shock sapped away what remained of her strength. She lay twitching and whimpering on the wet floor. She raised her head to see Mike sprawling in the same state. But he still hadn’t let go of his gun. He made one last limp attempt to raise it, but Papa lowered the rod to the floor again and El felt another surge of current passing through the puddles. After this second shock, they were both too weak to even scream. Saltwater was a strong conductor. El felt completely helpless. Her aching muscles were so tight and tense it was like her whole body had been tied up in barbed wire.

Papa left his rod on the stairs and then walked calmly across the wet floor to where Mike lay incapacitated. He stooped low and picked up the gun where it had fallen from Mike’s hand. With his other hand, he seized Mike’s hair, yanking him roughly to his knees.

“I always told you there would be consequences for your failures...” Papa said, his voice perfectly calm despite the chaos of the moment. "Didn't I tell you, child?"

El recognized the voice he was using. This wasn’t the voice Papa used when he was about to issue a threat. This was the voice he used when she was about to receive a punishment.

“This boy is nothing but a distraction. He’s preventing you from focusing on your true purpose, stopping you reaching your full potential. I cannot allow that any longer.”

El squirmed and struggled on the wet floor. She felt the broken glass cutting into her skin. But she couldn’t even think about standing. It was like her legs had stopped working. The most she could do was lift one of her shivering arms off the floor, her fingers clawing at the air as she reached out desperately for Mike.

“Please,” she sobbed. “ _Please_ I’ll do anything...”

Papa shook his head. He pressed the gun to Mike’s temple.

“You have ten seconds to say goodbye,” he told her.

He meant it. She could tell by his voice that he meant it and he would do it. She was seconds away from watching Mike die and there was nothing that she could do to stop it. Mike was hanging limp in Brenner’s grasp, too weak to fight him either. They held each other’s stares. The seconds slipped away fast and El saw that Mike trying to speak to her. His voice was so hoarse that she couldn’t really hear him. But she could read the words on his lips.

 _“I’m sorry…”_ Mike tried to say. And then _“…I love you…”_

El opened her mouth too but all that came out was a silent scream. Tears filled her eyes, blurring her vision. She tried to blink them away. And that’s when she heard it...

The crack. She heard a loud LOUD crack that echoed around the chamber.

She closed her eyes, feeling her heart crack at the same time.

The next thing that El heard was laughter. Papa was laughing and El felt like the sound of it would be the last thing to drive her insane. She forced herself to open her eyes, forced herself to look at Mike lying face down in the puddles, not moving. Her stomach lurched, but…but then she blinked. There was no blood surrounding Mike. If Papa had shot him in the head then there would be a lot of blood. But there was none at all.

She raised her eyes and saw that Papa wasn’t even looking at Mike anymore. He’d let go of Mike’s hair, dropping him like a ragdoll. Now he was staring up at the wall to his left. He was laughing at the wall. El followed his eyes and she realized it wasn’t the gun that’d made that cracking sound. It was the crack that had appeared in the wall. The long dark rent that was growing fast from the ceiling down to the floor. More pieces of stone and plaster started crumbling away as the hole slowly began to widen, like some force was pushing through from the other side. A sickly toxic smell started to breathe through the gash. El had never forgotten the smell of the Upside Down.

She lay gasping in horror. She’d done it. She’d opened a new gate. She hadn’t meant to, wasn’t even sure how she’d managed to…but there it was. A new threat to the town, to the entire world. She looked back at Mike. He’d managed to lift his head and raise himself onto his elbows. The two of them shared a look of fear across the wet floor.

At this moment, another person burst through the doors and entered the lab.

Hopper was red in the face from running. There were scratches on his cheeks and the sleeves of his jacket were torn. He took in the scene before him – the new gate in the wall, the broken bathtub, El and Mike on the floor. Hopper narrowed his eyes on Papa and started marching towards him, his fists clenched, arms ready to swing.

Papa barely saw him coming in time. But when he did, he sprang into action. He reached down and grabbed Mike again, this time gripping the back of his t-shirt and hoisting him up onto his feet. Papa clamped his forearm to Mike’s throat, holding him up against his chest like a shield.

“Don’t come any closer, Sheriff,” he said, pressing the gun to Mike’s cheek.

Hopper halted his steps, though his eyes still blazed with fury.

“As you can see…you’ve come too late.” Papa nodded at the crack in the wall. “You best get away from this lab. Go and take care of your town, Sheriff. The children will stay with me. I'll take them to safety.”

Hopper scowled. “That’s a little hard to believe when you’re holding a gun to one of their heads.”

As he said this, Hopper threw a quick glance down at El. He had come into the lab completely unarmed and El could tell by his look that he was after an advantage, _desperate_ for a weapon. She could tell that Hopper was looking at _her_ to be the weapon they so badly needed.

Papa noticed the look too and he laughed. “Don’t expect the girl to lend her powers to you again, Chief. You can make me the villain all you want. But you can’t come in here playing the hero. She knows what you did. I played her the tape. She’s never going to trust you again...”

El felt sick at this reminder of the tape. It still hurt to think about and she’d been thinking about it most of the afternoon while locked in her cell. And in the process of thinking it over she had come to the conclusion that Hopper must've done it to save Will. That it must've been the only thing he could've done. And Hopper would've done anything to save Will's life.

So...so if Hopper did everything he could to save Will, then she could trust him to save Mike now...

“I don’t need her powers,” said Hopper, full of false bravado. “I’ve got about fifty state troopers surrounding this building right now.”

“Have you really?” Papa scoffed, sounding unconvinced. “Well, you know what I’ve got, Sheriff?” He took the gun away from Mike’s face and pointed it at the pulsing crack in the lab wall. “I’ve got that! I’ve got the shadow world and all its monsters at my…”

Seeing the gun aimed away from Mike's head, El raised her hand and jerked her neck.

The gun flew out of Papa’s grasp and landed in the puddles by Hopper’s feet. Hopper didn’t waste a moment. He seized the gun and stepped forward, taking aim. Papa was a lot taller than Mike and El thought Hopper could probably risk a head-shot without Mike being hurt. But she also knew that Hopper really didn’t like taking risks.

“Give it up, you old psycho!” Hopper snarled. “You’ve got nowhere to run.”

“Haven’t I?” Papa said, glancing over his shoulder.

Papa was backing away from them now, moving closer towards the wall. There was still one place left that he could go. The gate was open and breathing its stink into the room. Papa moved towards its gape, still clutching Mike against his chest, looking determined to take him with him.

But just like El, Mike had recovered enough strength after the electric shocks to fight back. Jerking his neck, Mike bit down hard on Papa’s hand, causing the man to growl in pain and loosen his hold. Mike struggled out of his grasp and then threw himself down on the floor.

Hopper didn’t hesitate. He took aim and he shot…right at Papa’s head.

He missed by inches as Papa rushed for the gate, slipping in through its folds.

 _"Move!"_ El shrieked at both Hopper and Mike. “Get out of the way!”

She'd crawled as far as the metal stairs. Now she clung to the rails, hauling herself to her feet. Hopper and Mike got the message and stepped or scrambled away from the open gate, covering their ears and ready to let her do her work. El raised her hand, pointing her fingers towards the rent in the wall. She was determined to seal it while Papa was still trapped inside. Maybe she couldn’t kill him outright, but if he wanted to experiment with the monsters in there so much then better that he should live in their land. Let him see how long he could survive in there.

Another scream burst from her already burning throat. She thought of Kali and her friends. She thought of her mama. She thought of Benny and Barbara. She thought of everything that they had done to Mike. And she screamed and screamed, fresh blood gushing from her nose. It seemed there was still some power left in her shocked exhausted little body. El gave up every bit of what she had left to closing that hole in the wall. To shutting Papa inside. And when she had nothing else to give she collapsed to the floor.

Minutes or hours later, El woke up cradled in someone’s arms.

 _Mike_ , she realized. She was lying in Mike’s skinny shivering arms.

“El, can you hear me?” Mike was saying to her. “El…it’s okay! You…you closed the gate. You closed it and the bad man’s gone now. He’s gone for good. You stopped him.”

She managed a faint smile. “ _We_ stopped him,” she corrected.

She placed her hand to the side of Mike’s face. He was here. Mike was alive and whole and himself. A little laugh escaped her lips. Then she twisted her neck, searching for Hopper. She found him stood several paces away from them, not intruding on their reunion. His hands were buried in his pockets and he was averting his eyes, not even looking at them. Mike cleared his throat.

“Hey…” Mike began. “I’m sorry. I…I shouldn’t have gone ahead without you.”

“I’m the one who’s sorry…” Hopper muttered, still not looking at them. “I’m sorry for what I did that night. Sorry for what I put you through. For everything that happened at that school after I sent Brenner after you kids…” He winced, shaking his head. “I won’t make any excuses for it. I won’t try to justify it. I…I can’t take it back. But I can promise you that I’ll spend every day for the rest of my life trying to make it up to you.”

El stared at Hopper across the room. She reached out a hand.

“You already have,” she told him, beckoning him near.

Hopper turned to face her then. Looking into his eyes, she nodded to reassure him that he had her forgiveness; that she understood what he had done and that she didn’t blame him. And with that, Hopper crossed the floor and fell to his knees beside her. He lifted El towards his chest and she threw her arms around his neck. They squeezed each other fiercely, holding on like this for a good ten seconds. Then El felt one of Hopper’s arms leave her back so that he could reach out, cup Mike’s head and pull him into their little huddle too.

El held onto the two of them for a long time. Held them so tightly.

She held them and the world fell away around her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay! Kudos for this fic is in triple figures. Thanks guys, that means a lot. Can't believe I'm so close to the end. Expect speedy updates from now on because I'm eager to get this finished. You might even get another chapter tomorrow...


	11. For How Long

“Okay,” Hopper began. “We need to discuss your options.”

Mike hugged his arms around his chest. He was sat across from Hopper at the small wooden table in the cabin. Or what was left of the cabin at least. The place was a wreck. The windows had been blown out and the furniture was in disarray. Hopper had told Mike that it'd been an accident. That El had gotten really scared and upset when she’d first found out he was missing. Together they had propped the front door back into place and swept up the worst of the shattered glass before sitting down to talk.

Hopper hadn’t wanted El to be part of their discussion. She was still so drained from the effort of closing the gate. After carrying her inside, Hopper had settled her down on the couch with a couple of army blankets thrown over her. It was a warm enough night but there was a slight draft seeping through the broken windows and El couldn’t seem to stop shivering. It had been tough for Hopper to pry Mike away from her side. But they did need to talk. Mike had problems that weren’t going away. As Dr Owens had reminded them when they dropped him off in town, the troopers were still coming for Mike in the morning.

“Options.” Mike swallowed. “Right. Let’s hear them.”

“First option is that you, me and her pack up and leave right now,” the Chief said. “We get out of town, out of this state, we go on the run. I’ve got another car hidden away that we can take. I’ve got routes planned, places we can stay, old buddies who’ll help to hide us. I’ve had this exit strategy planned for a while now, just in case the authorities ever found out about her and I had to get her away fast.” He took a breath, bracing himself. “It’ll be harder getting you both away, especially since you’re likely to be a national news story come the morning. But we’ve got a head start. If we leave now then we could make it.”

Mike blinked, shocked that Hopper would even offer this up as a plan.

“For…for how long?” he stammered, struggling to process.

Hopper’s face hardened. “Kid…this isn’t a vacation period. We’d be fugitives. We’d be leaving Hawkins behind us for good. And that…that’d mean you leaving your family and friends too. You wouldn’t be able to say goodbye. You wouldn’t be able to contact them again, not even a phone call. It’d be the only way to keep you both safe.”

Mike shuddered at the prospect. “Keep us both safe? Do you mean, like…safe with new identities or safe locked in a cabin somewhere in the wilderness?”

“The latter,” the Chief said bluntly. “At least that’s how it’d have to be for a while. Till the heat on you has cooled off. Till I can figure out something out.”

“But El…she wouldn’t have to be in hiding this time, right? She could use her Jane Hopper identity. And then she wouldn’t have to be locked away like…”

“Kid, _think_. If we’re all going on the run together, I won’t be able to use the name Hopper anymore either. We’ll all have to start from scratch.”

“ _Shit_ , right...” He rubbed his head. It was starting to throb.

Sensing that Mike wasn’t crazy about this plan Hopper sighed and moved on.

“Next option…I take you to the station and when the state troopers come to question you in the morning, you tell them the truth. You tell them you were held hostage and drugged and tortured by those men. Your friends will be able to lead the cops out to that spot in the woods where Brenner’s secret bunker is located. I’m betting there will be enough evidence down there to prove what they did to you. And those circumstances should be enough to clear you for the firearm discharge. Ray Carroll would be the one going to prison.”

“Okay…sounds good,” said Mike, feeling nervously hopeful about this proposal. Only he couldn’t help noticing Hopper still looked grave. “What’s the catch?”

Hopper sighed again. “The thing is…if you’re going to tell the authorities the truth about what happened to you, then that means you’ll have to tell them about El too.”

“What?” Mike shook his head frantically. “No way, I would never…”

“Then there are going to be some pretty big holes in your story. And if the cops think you’re hiding something from them it’ll make you look bad. Then they might not be so willing to let you off for shooting a gun in a schoolyard. Besides it…it doesn’t matter if you try to keep El out of this, Mike. The truth about her is going to come out anyway.”

“What? Why would it?” he asked in worry and frustration.

“Because I talked to Ray Carroll at the hospital this afternoon. I went to take his statement and managed to get him alone. His leg’s fine by the way. He’s lost some blood, but it was only a flesh wound. He’ll make a full recovery, not that we should care…” He took a breath before telling Mike the next part. “He’s blackmailing us, kid. Carroll knows that if you were to accuse him then he’ll be convicted and he’ll go to prison, probably for the rest of his life. So the rat bastard is looking for any way to avoid that. He can’t turn state witness on Brenner now so this is how he’s protecting his own ass. If you tell the cops what Carroll did to you, then he’s going to tell them about El. He’ll take her down with him.”

Mike’s stomach turned over. “And if Ray tells the cops about El then…”

“Me and her would have to go on the run,” he said. “We’d have to leave you behind.”

Mike glanced over to where El was resting on the couch. She hadn’t stirred. She must have fallen asleep. She didn’t even know what Mike had done at the school yet. He didn’t know how he was going to tell her. He hated himself so much for having created this situation, for screwing up and putting her at risk. She…she’d only had a few months left. Just a few more months and Hopper had been planning to start introducing El – or rather Jane – to people as his long lost daughter. He was going to enroll her at Hawkins high ready to begin school with them in the fall. They’d been waiting so long for that day to come.

And now this. Now Mike had ruined everything. He thought back to the night when Hopper had dropped him off at the end of Maple Street. He remembered how the Chief had warned Mike then that his temper was going to blow their cover. He should've listened. He should have tried harder to control his stupid angry impulses. But it was too late for regret. All he could do now is make sure El didn’t suffer for his mistakes.

“What does Ray want in exchange for keeping quiet?” Mike asked, hesitantly.

“He wants to pretend he’s the victim in all this,” said Hopper. “Carroll’s the one who’s sold the state police that bullshit story about you being recruited by Russian spies as an assassin. Ray says the only way he’ll keep his mouth shut is if we play along with that story.”

“Oh, _great_ ,” Mike muttered, sarcastically. “So I guess that’s another option then...”

“Kid,” Hopper said softly. “It’s our _only_ other option.”

Mike flinched as he stared back at Hopper. No, no, _come on_ …there had to be some other way. But Mike was racking his brains too and he was starting to realize there was nothing else they could do. It was either go on the run and never see his friends and family again, tell the cops the truth and never see El again, or tell the cops a pack of lies that would put him behind bars. And Mike was shaking now, because he already knew which option he would choose. There was only one of those options that would allow El to stay here in Hawkins; that would allow her to come out of hiding and live the Jane Hopper life that the Chief had been so carefully planning for her. Mike couldn’t take that away from her.

“So...so that’s it then,” Mike said in a daze. “I’m going to jail.”

“Juvenile hall,” Hopper corrected, placing a hand on Mike’s forearm.

The Chief didn’t seem surprised by Mike’s choice, though there was a hint of gratitude in his eyes now as he stared across the table. Not only for Mike wanting to save El from a fugitive existence, but sparing Hopper himself from having to uproot his life in Hawkins too. It meant a lot to Mike that Hopper had even given him options, including all three of them going on the run together. It helped that Hopper hadn’t pressured Mike into just doing the noble thing. But maybe that was because he’d trusted Mike to make the right choice.

It didn’t mean that Mike wasn’t terrified, especially when it came to his next question.

“How…how long will they give me?” he asked, his voice wavering.

Hopper grimaced, rubbing his brow. “Hard to say. You’re barely fourteen. If they try you as a juvenile they can’t give you too long a sentence.”

“ _If?"_ His heart hammered against his ribs. "You…you mean they could try me as an adult?”

“It’s a possibility. But listen…even sticking with Ray’s story, your case isn’t hopeless. We can add in a few lies of our own to help with your defense, even mix them in with the truth. Here’s the story you can tell – you say that on Wednesday night these KGB agents broke into your home, drugged your parents and interrogated you about the whereabouts of that Russian girl you hid in your basement. Say that you had no information to give them so these agents made threats to your family if you didn’t come with them to help with their next mission. If we can make these imaginary Russian spies into the bad guys and convince a jury that you were coerced into the shooting at the school, then…then they could go easy on you. Best-case scenario the judge might even let you off with probation.”

Mike nodded. It was a pretty good story, so long as they could make it stand up in court ( _fuck, there was going to be a trial, he would be put on trial, this was really happening…_ ) But Mike didn’t want to go into this with any assumptions that he’d get a sympathetic judge who was going to let him off the hook.

“What’s the worst case scenario?” he asked Hopper.

The Chief shifted uncomfortably in his chair. He wasn’t going to sugar-coat it.

“If your defense of duress fails and they don’t believe that you were forced into the shooting then you’ll be charged with attempted murder,” he said. “That’s a really serious charge, especially if they decide to try you as an adult. I’m not going to lie you, kid. This is a really huge risk you’re taking. I can’t say for sure how this thing is going to turn out. But I wouldn’t be in this job if I thought our justice system couldn’t tell the innocent from the guilty. I reckon your parents can afford a good lawyer for you too and I’ll use every trick I know to help with your case. But Mike…if you’re really going to do this, you need to be prepared for the worst.”

“I am,” he insisted. “I get it. Just…tell me what I have to do.”

“We have to get you to the Sheriff house right now. You’ll have to be there for when the state police and most likely the feds arrive in the morning. And before they arrive we are going spend the rest of the night coming up with your story. The best story for your defense. We’ll need to go over every little detail. You’ll need to have it all clear in your head. Because tomorrow you’re going to be interrogated by some pretty serious cops who’ll be asking you to tell this story at least twenty times over while they poke it for holes...”

“ _Fuck…_ ” Mike said, out loud this time. He dropped his head into his hands, his fingers gripping his hair. He was already sweating just thinking about police interrogations. He was already exhausted. After everything he’d been through in the last few days Mike just wanted to sleep. He wanted to curl up on the couch with El and forget. “I...I’m so tired, Hop. I…”

“I know you are, kid,” he said gently. “But you’ve got to keep going. We’ve got some good strong coffee down at the station. That will see us through till morning.”

“What about El though?” he asked. “We shouldn’t be moving her…”

“No, we shouldn’t,” Hopper cut in. “And we won’t be. She’s staying here. It’s not safe to take her along with us and she’d only be a distraction to you. Right now you need to focus on yourself, you hear me? Your future depends on this, Mike. And I for one want to make sure you have a future. Because you deserve one. Because none of this was your fault. And because that girl over there is never going to have eyes for any other boy but you. So believe me when I say...I'm going to do everything I can to get you through this.”

Mike swallowed, realizing. “So you mean…I have to say goodbye _now_?”

Hopper nodded. “Right now. I’m sorry. It can’t wait.”

For Mike it was still only just sinking in. He had to say goodbye to El again. And how long would it be for this time? Once Mike got down to that station, once the troopers came and he was in police custody then...that was it. He'd be a prisoner for as long as they sentenced him. And from the way Hopper was talking that might be years. And for whatever time they gave him, El wouldn’t even be able to visit. She was still in hiding herself. Even when she became Jane Hopper a visit would be too big a risk. It would make no sense. Mike wasn’t supposed to have met Jane yet. So when Mike said goodbye to her now, it would be goodbye till whenever they let him go. 

Mike’s stomach clenched. He put a hand over his mouth and he bent double over his knees, suddenly feeling like he was going to throw up. Hopper quickly got out of his chair and crouched beside him as Mike struggled to control this painful spasm of panic.

“Hey, just breathe,” Hopper soothed. “You need to go over to the sink?”

Mike shook his head. “I’m not going to puke. I’ve got no time…” He took a steadying breath. “You’re right. I’ve got to do this now.”

Hopper clasped his shoulder, looking at Mike with an admiration that he wasn’t used to seeing. He certainly never saw it on the face of his own father. And just that one look from Hopper gave Mike the strength he needed to pull himself together. He rose to his feet and crossed the floorboards into the living room space. His hand was reaching out to shake El’s shoulder, to gently wake her up. But when Mike rounded the couch, he found that El was lying there with her eyes wide open, staring solemnly at the wall.

“El, I didn’t think…” he stammered. “You…you’ve been awake?”

“Yes,” she said, her voice dull and toneless. “I’ve not been sleeping at all.”

He swallowed. “Oh…so did you hear everything that we said?”

She nodded, still not looking at him. “I’m drained,” she said. “Not deaf.”

Mike braced himself. He’d been expecting her to be upset, of course, but this was different. She looked angry with him, really angry. And Mike couldn’t think of a time when she’d ever been mad at him before. He crouched down before the sofa, trying to meet her eyes.

“If you heard us then you understand why I have to…”

“No, _I don’t_!” she snarled, spitting out the words. “I don’t understand at all. Only bad people are supposed to go to prisons. You’ve done nothing wrong.”

“El, it’s not about right or wrong, it’s…”

She didn’t let him finish. “No, you can’t go! You’ve not done anything. You’re _good_. And if you get put in a prison with bad people then they’ll hurt you.”

He winced. “I’m not that good, El. And I can fight back if I need to.”

“You’re not going,” she said firmly, still not looking at him. “I won’t let you.”

Mike got back to his feet then, throwing up his hands in exasperation.

“El _please_! Don’t make this any harder! I don’t want to say goodbye to you like this. Please just…just get off that couch and hug me, because I have to go. I have to go now!”

She suddenly sat upright. “I said NO!” she screamed.

With this scream, Mike felt like he’d been hit in the chest by a water cannon. He’d only had this feeling once before. The night he’d tried to stop El fighting the Demogorgan and she had thrown him back against the classroom cupboards. Now Mike was flung across the cabin and landed hard on the mattress of Hopper’s bed against the far wall.

“Hey, hey, _stop that_!” said Hopper, moving around the sofa to intervene.

El got her feet then and planted herself between Hopper and the bed where she’d deposited Mike. Hopper stopped in his tracks and he raised his hands when he saw the fierce look on her face. Judging by his reaction, Mike had the feeling that El had used her powers on the Chief too. That there had been telekinetic fights like this in their cabin before now. 

“You’re not taking him,” she told Hopper. “Mike stays here. We’ll hide him here.”

Hopper sighed. “I’m afraid that plan’s not going to work, kid. Half the staff at Pennhurst know that Mike was last seen in my custody. So if Mike turns up missing now then I’m the first person who’ll be getting investigated. If we tried to hide him here tomorrow morning then he’d be found before the end of the day. You’d _both_ be found.”

El didn’t budge. She held Hopper’s stare. “Then we go,” she said. “All three of us. We go tonight. We run away from here. Option one.”

“El, no,” said Mike, rising from the bed. “I don’t want that. I’d never see my family and friends again. They’d never know what happened to me. I can’t do that to them. So I have to stay. Even if they lock me up, it won’t be forever. But if we go on the run, we’ll have to hide for the rest of our lives…”

“Then I’ll hide!” she wailed. “I’ll hide forever. _I don’t care_!”

She was sobbing now and she still had her back to him. Mike reached for her shoulder, wanting to turn her round to face him. But at the touch of his hand, she screamed again and Mike found himself thrown back against the bed once more. This time he was slammed back so hard that his head banged against the cabin wall. Hopper opened his mouth to yell again, but Mike got there first and he yelled at her louder.

“ _Stop doing that!!_ ” he snapped, getting right back onto his feet. “I get it, alright! You have superpowers and I don’t. But that doesn’t mean you can use them to push me around. And it doesn’t mean that you’re the one who always has to save me, okay? This time I’m the one who has to do something to protect you. And I’m doing it!”

Mike stopped to breathe. El was looking at him now, her eyes wide and pained. He dared to take a step towards her again, this time reaching for her hand. She let him take it.

“Let me do this for you, El,” he said, speaking to her softly now. “I don’t want you to have to hide forever. I want you to leave this cabin. I want you to be Jane Hopper. I want you to have your own life here in Hawkins.”

“But it won’t be with you...” Her eyes filled with tears and suddenly she was clinging to the front of his t-shirt. “Mike...how long will I have to miss you for this time? Another _year_? Two years? _Ten years_? Please I…I can’t do this again. I can’t go so long without seeing you.”

“Hey,” he soothed, bringing his hands up to her shoulders. “You can see me whenever you want, remember? And this time I’ll know for sure that you’re with me.”

Yes... _yes_...even if they locked Mike up, he would still get visits from El. He would sense her like he had done before. But he wouldn’t get to see her. He might not see her face again for a very long time. He wouldn’t even be able to take a photograph of her into juvie with him. So Mike held her cheeks between his hands and looked at her now while he still could. He felt her tears slip over his thumbs and he stared deep into her eyes. He tried to take his own photograph in his mind. He’d have to keep her in his memories for now.

Mike couldn’t stand to lose her again either. But more importantly, he couldn’t let El lose her chance for her own life. She’d been a prisoner almost all of her childhood. Twelve years locked in that lab and close to two more years hidden in this cabin. If it took Mike sacrificing his own freedom for hers, then so be it. It was El’s turn to be free now.

Mike gently pressed his lips to hers. Then drawing back he said the words he’d been dreading.

“Goodbye El...” he said, slipping out of her arms.

Mike said goodbye as softly and sadly as she’d said it to him before she’d turned to fight a monster to save his life. Just like El had done, Mike turned away from her now. He headed for the door, he got into the car with Hopper and he didn’t look back. Not this time.

He couldn’t bear looking back as he left her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *sigh* Only one chapter left and the question remains...will I ever let anything nice happen to Mike and Eleven?


	12. We Don't Take Risks

**Monday 24th March, 1986**

 

“Hey losers, I hear your commie terrorist friend got out of juvie. That true?”

At the sound of Troy’s voice, El pushed her glasses up her nose and scraped her curly brown hair around her cheeks. Lucas rolled his eyes at the taunt before rising from the picnic bench on the school field where the party were seated. He stepped forward to block Troy and James before they got any closer to their table.

“If Mike _is_ out of juvie…” said Lucas, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “…then I wouldn’t mess with us. You two could be next on his hit list.”

Troy snorted. “Yeah right. Like they’re going to let that mental case back into school. Who knows when he might flip out next and go on another of his shooting sprees?”

Dustin got up from their table too at this point and came to stand by Lucas’s side.

“Hey! At least Mike doesn’t threaten kids with knives or force them to jump off cliffs,” he said. “It seems like a few mental cases have been let into this school already.”

“What did you say, you collarless freak?” said Troy, shoving Dustin in the chest.

Lucas stepped in, positioning himself in front of Dustin. “He said why don’t you run along to the little boy’s room before you piss your pants again.”

Troy narrowed his eyes, looking Lucas up and down. The bully was taller and bulkier, but it was well known around the high school that Lucas had been taking karate classes since last summer and he was quickly working his way through the belts.

“Oh, you looking to start something, Midnight?” Troy sneered.

“You’re the one who started this,” said Max, marching over, her fists clenched at her sides. “But we’ll finish it, believe me…”

El really wanted to stand up too, but she forced herself to stay seated at the bench with Will. Troy had been a worry for her and Hopper since she started high school. So far the bully had failed to recognize her as the little bald girl who’d once broken his arm with her mind. But this was mostly because El was careful to keep her distance from him. That and her disguise. Her hair had grown to her shoulders now and she wore thick-framed glasses to school, even though she didn’t need them for her eyesight. Dustin said that _Jane Hopper_ was like her Clark Kent identity. It had been his idea for her to wear the glasses and to act all shy and nerdy at the school so nobody would guess she was a secret badass. When she took her glasses off that’s when she became a superhero again. That’s when she was Eleven.

So she didn’t try to be the hero now. She let her friends confront the bullies and she kept looking away. She looked up at the sky and the birds circling overhead.

“Troy, just leave it, man,” James was saying, tugging at his sleeve. “They’re not worth it...”

But Troy still wasn’t backing off or shutting up. “I’ll tell you something, Sinclair. If the commie terrorist is out of lock up, then he’s the one who better watch his back. Because there’s plenty of patriots in this town who’ll want to string him up like the filthy traitor that he… _UGH_!”

El quickly lowered her eyes and she heard her friends burst out laughing.

“Dude!” said James, laughing a little himself. “Did that bird just shit on your head?!”

“Shut up!!” yelled Troy, his voice growing distant. “This isn’t over!”

El allowed herself a sideways glance just in time to see the bullies retreating back towards the school building, Troy with one hand raised, struggling to cover his head. El’s friends turned back to the picnic bench, knowing smirks on their faces, as they sat back down at the table.

“Nice shot, Jane,” said Max, giving her a sly wink.

El smirked too, wiping a tiny drop of blood from her nostril.

“So…” said Will, looking a little more solemn than the others. “Commie terrorist? Is that what it’s going to be from now on?”

“It’s better than Frog-face,” Dustin said with a shrug. “Those assholes are always going to call us something.”

“Like Toothless?” said Will, giving Dustin a playful kick under the table.

“Or Zombie boy?” said Dustin, kicking Will back.

“Or Weirdo,” said El, taking the opportunity to nudge Lucas with her foot.

Lucas held up his hands. “Hey! It takes one to know one!”

They laughed. They all needed to laugh and let off steam right now.

“We’ve been the weird ones at Hawkins high ever since we started here,” Dustin said philosophically. “And once we get our weirdo leader back then we’re going to be stronger than ever.” He nodded in the direction that Troy and James had fled. “They’re scared of us.”

They shared a look around the table and nodded in solidarity. Their party were strong together. They’d faced far worse dangers that that mouth-breather Troy. They couldn’t let school bullies distract them now. They had far more important things to focus on.

Mike _had_ been let out that weekend. His mom and Nancy had picked him up from the youth detention facility on the Saturday afternoon. His release happened to fall on Will’s birthday and Will kept saying that he couldn’t have asked for a better gift than his best friend coming home. Not that any of the party had seen Mike since he’d been back. The boys had talked with him a little on their walkie talkies. But Mrs Wheeler had insisted that this first weekend would be strictly family time. Nancy said that her mom needed a quiet couple of days to settle Mike back in at the house. She said that there would have to be a lot of long talks between them before Mike was allowed to see his friends again.

But that morning, Nancy and Jonathan had rounded them all up in the school yard. They'd let them know that Mrs Wheeler had been on the phone with Joyce and that she'd agreed to let Mike go over to the Byers house that evening. Joyce would be making them dinner and then Mike would be allowed to stay for a few hours so they could all catch up. So El had spent the day so far watching the numbers slowly change on her wrist watch. She hadn’t learned a thing in her classes. She couldn’t even begin to focus. It was crazy that after waiting 305 days for this moment (yes, she’d been counting the days again...), these last few hours felt like the most unbearable to get through. She had to keep reminding herself, as Hopper always reminded her, that the wait could’ve been far worse.

When Mike was sentenced last summer he’d been given a year with the chance for parole after six months. It wasn’t the verdict they’d all been hoping for but Hopper had said that the judge had made a compromise. All things considered the trial had gone well. Mike’s story that he’d been coerced into the shooting had stood up in court with suitable evidence to back it up. There were photos of the bruises on Mike's wrists and the blood tests that had confirmed the Wheeler parents had been drugged. That was enough to convince the jury that these shadowy Russian agents had threatened and forced Mike into this apparent assassination mission. Little Holly had also been a star witness for her brother’s defense, telling how she had seen the “ _bad men_ ” upstairs before Mike had helped her get away from the house.

It had also helped Mike’s case that Ray Carroll hadn’t appeared in court. He’d shied away from the trial, only submitting written evidence, in which he had even agreed that Mike must have been _'pressured'_ into attacking him. None of them had seen or heard from Ray Carroll since. It looked like he had taken the first opportunity to distance himself from the whole business. With the main victim not even pressing charges, there had been hope that Mike might even be acquitted without having to serve time.

But the prosecution had presented evidence of their own to put Mike’s innocence in doubt, starting with the fact that Mike had willingly harbored a suspected _“Russian child assassin”_ in his family’s basement. Then there were reports from Mike’s teachers showing a steady increase in behavior incidents and angry outbursts at school during the last eighteen months. And as Nancy said there was the _“fucking politics”_ of the situation. Nancy said the prosecutors had wanted to make an example of Mike to deter all other American kids from good patriotic families from getting drawn into any commie conspiracies. Not to mention there were the hysterical parents of Hawkins Middle Schoolers who didn’t want to see a boy who’d shot off a gun in the playground let off with nothing more than a slap on the wrists.

So in the end, the more serious charge of attempted murder had been dropped, but charges for firearm discharge and reckless endangerment had remained and those charges had put Mike in juvenile hall for the last ten months. The Wheelers had only been notified a week ago that Mike was being released early due to good behavior.

“Hey,” Dustin said, suddenly brightening. “After we’ve had dinner at the Byres house do you think we’ll have time to start a new campaign? Mike sent me a new one in the mail just two weeks ago before he even knew he was getting out. I swear I haven’t opened it yet! I thought I could bring a board over tonight just in case.”

Lucas rolled his eyes. “I think Mike might want to do something besides playing D&D tonight, idiot.”

They all turned to look at El then, who felt her cheeks flushing.

“See what Mike wants," she said. "I really do want to play with him sometime.”

Max raised an eyebrow. "Oh, we _know_ you want to play with him..." 

They all laughed again as El's blush deepened. She really had just meant the board game. The rest of the party had spent many long nights teaching El its complicated rules. They'd played a new campaign together every month. New campaigns that Mike wrote for them in his cell and then posted to Dustin. Even though he couldn't be there in the room with them, Mike was still their Dungeon Master.

“How about we save the new campaign for next weekend, if Mrs Wheeler says it's okay,” Will suggested. “Hopefully we’ll have more time then.” A small smile crept onto his face. “I can’t wait to have Mike telling the story again. Dustin…you’ve been a great stand in, but…”

“I know,” said Dustin. “Nobody does it like Mike.”

El felt her heart clenching. It touched her that Mike’s friends found him just as special and irreplaceable as she did. She’d grown so close to the four of them during the time that Mike had been away. They truly felt like _her_ friends now, not just Mike’s friends that she'd latched onto.

“Hey,” said Lucas, suddenly turning to Dustin. “Did Mike send you any more chapters of his novel when he sent you the new campaign?”

Dustin tutted. “I keep telling you. It’s not a novel, it’s a memoir.”

“Come on, man,” Lucas griped back. “It’s a novel. It’s fiction! It’s Mike’s made up story of how he got tangled up with a bunch of imaginary Russian spies.”

“And how he fell in love with one of them,” Will added. “It’s a romance.”

“It’s the true Mike Wheeler story,” Dustin corrected. “At least that’s what we’re pitching it as.”

“Right,” Max snorted. “Because if Mike ever told his _true_ life story, then everyone would think he was insane. Then they really would send him to Pennhurst.”

“Yeah,” said Will. “And he wouldn't be the only one.”

“Sorry, wait…” said Lucas. “What did you say about _pitching_ Mike’s book?”

Dustin shrugged. “I’ve been letting Marissa over at the library read some. I kind of had to, since she’s been letting me Xerox so many copies for you guys. She thinks that it’s really good. Not only the story but the way Mike tells it. She thinks we have a future bestseller on our hands. She thinks Mike could earn millions if he publishes it.”

“Well, that’d be some justice at least,” said Max. “About time something good came out of this mess.”

“Yes...Mike deserves something good,” El said softly.

The party all nodded and toasted their juice bottles to that.

At that moment, the bell rang and they all had to head off to their afternoon classes. Slowly but surely the minutes that El counted on her watch turned into hours and slowly those hours brought her to the end of the school day. Then Hopper was pulling over to pick her up at the gates while the rest of the party piled into the Wheeler's station wagon with Nancy and Jonathan. They all drove up to the Byers house to find Steve had come over and was helping Mrs Byers fill her dining table and most of her kitchen surfaces with food enough to feed an army. Apparently Joyce was under the impression that Mike hadn’t been fed in the ten months that he’d been in youth detention.

Once El was at the Byres house, she took off her glasses. Nancy helped her tie her curls up in a bow and gave her eye shadow and lip gloss, like she’d done before the Snow Ball. El had seen what Mike looked like over the last ten months, visiting in him in her psychic projections every night. She knew that he was taller, skinnier and his hair had grown as long as hers. But she was also aware that in all that time Mike hadn’t been seeing her back. She wanted to be pretty when he saw her again. A pimple had appeared on her chin that morning, threatening to spoil everything. But Nancy just laughed at El when she pointed an angry finger at it. Nancy insisted that nothing would spoil this reunion for Mike.

Or at least…that was what they had thought.

That’s what they had thought until an hour later when Mike had failed to arrive at Joyce’s welcome home dinner. That’s what they thought until Joyce received a call from Mike’s mom telling them that he wouldn’t be coming. They all stood around listening as Joyce and then Nancy tried to reason with Mrs Wheeler before hanging up the phone.

“I…I’m so sorry,” said Nancy. “My mom, she’s been having freak outs like this ever since we got Mike home. She doesn’t want to let him out of the front door. She’s convinced he’s going to get kidnapped by Russian spies if he steps out the house again. Either that or he'll be lynched by local nationalists.”

“Poor Karen,” said Joyce. “I know how she feels. I was the same with Will after we got him back. We just need to give her time.”

“M-more time?” said El, her eyes already filling. “We can’t see Mike? We still have to wait?”

Nancy winced in sympathy. “My mum said she didn’t want Mike leaving the house just yet. But she did say that I could bring some of Mike’s friends over to play games in his basement for a few hours.” She swallowed. “She said it could only be Mike’s closest friends though.”

“So not me…” El said bitterly, tears spilling down her cheeks now.

Lucas and Dustin came over to her then, each putting an arm around her shoulders. They knew how hard this separation had been on her and on Mike too. Unlike her, they had been able to see Mike in person during visiting hours. They had passed coded messages between the two of them. They had let El read every letter Mike had sent them, since he couldn’t address any to her personally. But they knew it wasn’t enough. Not after this long.

“ _No_...” said Hopper, sounding determined. “Dry your eyes, kid, and get in the car. You’re seeing him tonight. We’ll figure something out.”

El blinked in surprise, but she didn’t stop to ask questions. With Hopper's vow, they all made rushed apologies to Mrs Byers as they left her, Jonathan and Steve to pack up the uneaten food. Then El climbed back into Hopper’s cruiser and they followed Nancy in the station wagon as she drove the rest of the party over to the Wheeler house. Hopper parked a little further up Maple Street, so Mike’s mom wouldn’t see his car from her window.

“Okay, here’s the plan,” said Hopper. “We’re going to give it about twenty minutes. Enough time for them to get set up in the basement. Then I’ll radio through to Mike’s walkie talkie. Don’t worry, I know the channel you kids use. If the coast is clear and Karen is upstairs, then you can sneak round to the backdoor. Once you’re in there you can hide in that blanket fort thing. Just be ready to pull the curtain down if you hear his mom coming. Karen doesn’t need any more scares with strangers in her house.”

El nodded eagerly. “I can do that. It’s a good plan.”

“It was Mike’s plan,” Hopper said with a sad smile. “He suggested it that night I dropped him off here before…before Brenner and Carroll got him. Mike just wanted to play that damn board game with you in his basement. But I told him no. I told him it was a risk and a stupid idea.” He shrugged. “It’s actually not that bad.”

“It’ll be safe then?” she asked.

He nodded. “If you can keep yourself hidden it should be. I got Nancy to sneak me into their house earlier this week so I could do a sweep for bugs. The Wheelers phones are still being tapped, but other than that the house is clean.”

“But...what if his mom sees me?”

Mike’s mom was another person like Troy who El had been keeping her distance from since she’d left the cabin and stepped into the world as Jane Hopper. Nancy had confirmed for them that her mom still had a copy of her photo that Brenner had given her. With all Karen’s current fears about Russian spies involved with her son, it was unlikely that she was going to forget the face in that photo anytime soon. She would almost certainly be reaching for the phone to call the police if she ever caught El in her basement again.

Hopper sighed. “Karen’s a good woman, you know. She’s got a big heart. That’s where her kids get theirs from. You know Marissa at the library told me once that Mrs Wheeler must've loaned every romance novel on her shelves, some of them twice over. The woman is a sucker for a good love story. I guess that's what was missing from her own marriage.” He paused as if considering. “I can’t help thinking if Karen knew the truth...if she knew everything her son had done for you and everything you’d done for him...if she knew how strongly you both felt then maybe…maybe she’d want to help you two stay together as much as I do.”

Her heart swelled at this. “So…you think we could tell her?”

He swallowed. “It would be a risk. Karen could be scared off by this whole situation. She could just see you as a danger to her child and go running to the authorities. I couldn’t even blame her for doing that. The poor woman’s been through a lot during the last year. But maybe....maybe she’d understand. Maybe knowing the truth would actually help her. Maybe. When the time is right, then maybe. But it would be a risk, El...”

She nodded. “And we don’t take risks.”

She slumped in her seat as silence fell between them. She should've known she’d been asking too much, suggesting they tell the truth to Mike’s mom. Hopper was right though. Mrs Wheeler had been through a tough time. And not just because of everything that'd happened with Mike.

Last winter Mr Wheeler had moved away. It was shortly after Mike had been denied parole and the family had lost their hopes of having him home for the holidays. On Christmas Eve, Karen, Nancy and Holly had shown up on the Byers doorstep, asking if they could stay for a few hours while Ted packed up his things. Mr Wheeler had left his wife with the house, the car and the kids in exchange for being able to leave the stress and the scandal that their family life had become. He’d taken a job transfer that allowed him to move to the coast. He still sent them cheques in the mail, but Nancy said he didn’t visit and he rarely called. She said he hadn’t even phoned this weekend to talk to Mike after his release.

El knew from her visits to his cell that Mike had taken his parent's impending divorce hard. That he’d blamed himself for his family falling apart. But when El had spoken about it with Nancy, his sister insisted that Mike’s situation had only brought a swifter end to a marriage that'd been dying a death for years.

El checked her watch again, then looked up at Hopper.

“Is it time?” she asked, anxiously.

Hopper nodded, reaching for his radio.

“Mike?” he said. “Mike, are you there? Do you copy?”

It took all of three seconds to get an answer. _“Chief? Is that you?”_

A smile broke out over her face at the sound of his voice.

“Yeah, it’s me, kid. Welcome home. What are you doing right now?”

_“I…me and the party are down in the basement. We…”_

“Just you and your friends?” asked Hopper.

_“Yeah...my mom’s upstairs. Chief is…?”_

“Make sure the backdoor is open. Over and out.”

Hopper turned off his radio and pressed a hand to El’s shoulder.

“Go on, kid,” he said with a smile. “Go see him. I’ll wait for you out here.”

El threw her arms around Hopper’s neck, squeezing him hard.

“Thank you, Dad,” she whispered into his ear.

She was still getting used to saying that word. But at times like these it felt good to use it. El climbed out of the car, walking fast across the field. She came to stand outside the backdoor of the Wheeler house. She lingered at the door a moment to catch her breath, suddenly in shock that she didn’t have to wait any longer. All she had to do was knock, step through the door and then…

The door opened. And suddenly there was Mike, standing right in front of her.

She hadn’t even knocked. He must've sensed her presence.

They stared at each other. All sounds faded to mute and the rest of the world fell away. El and Mike stared at each other in the doorway before falling into each other’s arms. They were vaguely aware of their friends circling around them, frantically ushering them inside and then over to the blanket fort. Somehow they got them both inside Mike’s childhood den and then pulled the covers down over them.

Mike and El were both too tall now to fit inside the little fort comfortably. They had to pull up their knees and cuddle close to each other. Not that they minded doing that, of course. For a moment, they just hugged, pressing their foreheads together, feeling each other’s breath and heartbeats in the confined space. Then El cupped Mike’s face in her hands and she kissed him deeper than she ever had before. She kissed him long and slow as her hands stroked over Mike’s shoulders, then down his chest, before slipping under his shirt. Mike broke their kiss to gasp a little before his hands began exploring her body in the same way. El wanted to be even closer to Mike, to explore him even further. They were fifteen now. Soon they’d want to do a lot more than kiss. But for now, this was enough. This was _everything_.

They stayed snuggled in the blanket fort like that for over an hour. Their friends didn’t disturb them and they didn’t talk. For now, there was nothing that needed to be said. El didn’t need to ask Mike about his time in juvenile hall. She had been there. She’d seen it. She had visited his small solitary cell every night at their usual time. Some nights Mike had sensed her presence and pretended to talk to himself while really talking to her. Other nights she’d found him lost in a book or scribbling his journal, not realizing she was there with him. Some nights she had found Mike crying into his pillow and there would be new bruises on his arms or cuts on his lips. And on those nights, it had taken even bit of her willpower not to jump on a night bus, get over to that detention center and rip open all of those cell doors till she found Mike and took him far away from that place and the bad kids jailed with him. But she’d promised not to rescue him this time.

El knew that Mike would talk to her about his time in his cell when he was ready.

And when he did...maybe she’d be ready to talk about the time she’d spent her cell too.

“Hey guys,” said a voice from outside their dark little blanket world. Will’s voice. “Sorry to interrupt. But Mike’s mom’s calling him and…”

Mike flinched, planted a quick kiss on El’s cheek and then slipped out of the fort, hurrying upstairs. El wrapped her empty arms around her knees. She missed Mike again the moment he was gone. She took a few deep calming breaths, struggling not to cry. After she’d been sitting alone for a minute or two, she heard Will’s voice again.

“El…are you okay in there?” he asked her tentatively.

“I’m fine,” she said through the covers. “I just wish...we didn’t always have to hide.”

“I wish you didn’t have to either,” said Will sympathetically. “It’s just how it is. Mike’s mom…she’s going to be like this for a while. Like my mom was after getting me back. Even though my mom knew I needed time to be alone or time with my friends, she just found it so hard to let go.”

El nodded. “I understand,” she said. “I just wish…”

She heard feet coming down the basement steps again. Then suddenly Mike was throwing up the blanket that she had been hiding behind. She blinked in surprise as he knelt down before the entrance of the fort. She saw that Mike had tears in his eyes. But he was smiling too, his pretty smile that she hadn’t seen in such a long time. She realized that whatever it was that was making Mike cry, it was something that was also making him happy.

“What?” asked El, leaning forwards. “Mike, what is it?”

He reached out and took her hand. “I...I want you to meet someone.”

“What?” she spluttered as Mike helped her to her feet.

“Hopper’s upstairs in our living room,” said Mike, his voice wavering with skittish emotion. “He’s been talking to my mom for the last hour. He…he’s told her everything, El. He said it was time. He said that he thought it was worth taking the risk.”

El swallowed. “And...your mom? Is she mad?”

“Only that I didn’t tell her the truth sooner.” He squeezed her hand, tugging her towards the stairs. “Come on. She says she wants to meet you too.”

El was smiling so hard that her mouth hurt now. She couldn’t believe this was happening. As she climbed the stairs with Mike she looked down to see the rest of their friends smiling too and giving them thumbs up. They passed through the kitchen where Nancy was drawing crayon pictures with Holly. Nancy reached out to squeeze El’s shoulder as she walked by. Mike led her through into the living room where his mom sat on the couch beside Hopper. The Sheriff was holding Mrs Wheeler’s hand and there was a box of tissues resting on her lap, several of which now lay scrunched up on the carpet by her feet. When they entered the room, Mike’s mom put her tissues aside, rising to her feet. She stared at El open mouthed, recognition lighting in her eyes.

“Mom,” Mike began, still holding her hand. “This is…”

“Eleven...” Mrs Wheeler said on impulse. Then she bit her lip, glancing apologetically at Hopper. “No sorry I…I meant to say _Jane_.”

“Actually…it’s El,” she told her. “Mike calls me El.”

Mrs Wheeler nodded, a smile slowly spreading over her face as she looked between El and her son.

Then she took a step forward and held out her hand. “I’m happy to meet you, El.”

El could tell by Karen’s eyes that this wasn’t a lie. She reached back.

“I’m happy too,” she said as they took hands.

That wasn’t lie either. It was truer than it’d ever been.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you liked this extra long resolution chapter with Mike/Eleven snuggling and everything. If you've taken the time to read this entire fic through then thank you so much. If you liked my story and haven't already then please leave kudos, give feedback in the comments, bookmark to re-read sometime and if you're feeling really generous please rec this story to your Stranger Things fandom friends. This is me signing off *collapses over desk*


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